UC-NRLF 


Ln  ?' 


UP'ANP'DOWN 


Main  Lib. 

REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

'Received  J%<^?..^_          >  >QOO  • 


2Ctie  ftitersfoe  library  for  looting 


NUMBER  4 

UP  AND   DOWN   THE   BROOKS 
BY  MARY  E.  BAMFORD 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS 


BY 


MARY   E.  BAMFORD 


BOSTON   AND    NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 


1899 


BIOLOGY 

UBRARY 

G 


Copyright,  1889, 
BY  MARY  E.  BAMFORB. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

DREDGING  NOTES       ....        a        ...        1 
CHAPTER  II. 

WATER-SCORPIONS 37 

CHAPTER  III. 

MY  WATER-LOVERS 30 

,  ? 

CHAPTER  IV. 
WATER-BOATMEN 52 

CHAPTER  V. 
WATER-TIGERS 59 

CHAPTER  VI. 
WHIRLIGIGS 80 

CHAPTER  VII. 
WATER-LIZARDS  AND  THEIR  ILK 101 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK 116 

CHAPTER   IX. 
CADDIS-WORMS  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .    135 


iv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 
MY  CORYDALUS 144 

CHAPTER  XL 
COMPANIONS  OF  MY  SOLITUDE 154 

CHAPTER  XII. 
FROGS,  BOYS,  AND  OTHER  SMALL  DEER          .        .        .171 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
A  LINGERING  GOOD-BYE          .        .        .        .     •  .        .203 


NOTE. 


THE  insects  mentioned  in  these  pages  are  those 
that  I  have  found  by  hunting  in  several  brooks  in 
Alameda  County,  California.  The  fact  of  the 
distance  of  my  point  of  observation  from  the 
places  where  most  readers  reside  makes  no  espe- 
cial difference,  however,  as  members  of  the  same 
families  of  insects  will  be  found  in  or  beside  al- 
most any  brook,  East  or  West.  The  various  types 
of  boy  mentioned  here  probably  exist  in  both  sec- 
tions of  the  country,  also;  and  I  will  promise 
those  who  go  dredging  in  the  Atlantic  -  coast 
streams  that  there  shall  appear  to  them  the  ap- 
paritions of  both  the  " fat  woman"  and  the  "wan- 
derer from  Erin's  isle." 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

DREDGING   NOTES. 

"  Tush,  tush !  fear  boys  with  bugs." 

Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

"  You  must  n't  ever  let  one  of  those  big  white 
dragon-flies  come  near  you,"  said  a  little  girl 
to  me,  impressively ;  "  for,  don't  you  know,  they 
've  got  a  needle  and  thread  inside  every  one 
of  them,  and,  if  they  catch  you,  they  '11  sew  your 
ears  up,"  and  she  looked  at  me  with  solemn  child- 
ish eyes,  evidently  believing  in  the  anticipated 
calamity. 

"  Yes,"  her  little  companion  chimed  in,  "  they  '11 
sew  your  ears,  an'  eyes,  an'  nose,  an'  mouth  up," 
and,  having  faithfully  warned  me,  the  little  ones 
trotted  up  the  bank  and  disappeared,  leaving  me 
to  smile  that  the  ancient  prejudice  against  dragon- 
flies  should  find  such  firm  advocates  beside  a  Cali- 
fornia stream. 

Meantime,  from  the  depths  of  the  brook  beside 
me,  my  muddy  cloth  dredger  brings  up  various 


2  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

larval  and  perfect  forms  of  insect-life.  Great, 
sprawling,  green  larvae  of  dragon-flies  cling  with 
their  six  legs  to  the  dredger,  and,  to  their  indig- 
nation, are  tumbled  headlong  into  the  pail  that 
is  to  carry  the  findings  home.  Smaller  Iarva3  of 
the  Agrion  dragon-flies  come  with  them.  Qccfa 
sionally  one  of  the  Hydrometridce,  so-called  water- 
spiders,  or  skaters,  that  spend  life  in  an  almost 
endless  skate  on  top  of  the  water,  comes  up  in 
my  dredger,  gazes  at  me  in  surprise,  and  then 
skips  back  into  the  pool,  to  begin  again  the  skat- 
ing-match  with  his  brethren,  and  to  watch  for  any 
unlucky  yellow  morsel  of  a  lady-bug  that  may 
chance  to  fall  from  the  overhanging  grasses  into 
the  brook.  Did  Don  Luis  Peralta,  half  a  century 
ago,  when  he  gave  this  land  to  Antonio  Maria, 
know  what  a  multitude  of  living  creatures  he  gave 
with  it  ? 

Now  and  then  one  of  the  black  Dytiscidce,  or 
Water-Tigers,  an  inch  in 
length,  tumbles  clumsily 
from  the  dredger ;  and  his 
smaller  brethren  abound. 
These  Dytiscidce  are  mur- 
derers at  heart,  as  no  one 
can  doubt  who  has  ever 
seen  an  earth-worm  in 
their  power.  No  sooner 
does  the  earth-worm  fall 
into  the  water  of  the  bottle  in  which  these  beetles 


Water-skater. 
Hydrotrechus  remigis. 


DREDGING  NOTES.  3 

are  confined,  than  one  of  the  hungry  Dytiscidce 
will  pounce  on  the  unlucky  creature.      Another 
beetle,  looking  up  from  the  bottom   of  the  jar, 
will  behold   the    prize  to   which  his 
brother  has  fallen  heir,  and  straight- 
way,  filled   with    covetousness,    will 
rush  upward  through   the  water  to 
pull  the  desired  morsel  away  if  pos- 
sible.    One   beetle  will  tug  in    one 
direction,  the  other  in  another ;  they 
rush  through  the  water,  shaking  their        j)«tiscus 
victim  in  perfect  fury,  till  a  person 
watching  the  battle  might  almost  hear  the  first 
beetle  squeak,   "  I  will  have  it,"    and  the  other 
reply,  "  You  shan't."     And  so  the  fight  goes  on, 
till  one  of   the  beetles  conquers,  and  departs  to 
enjoy  the  spoils  of  war. 

Numbers  of  silvery  beetles,  —  the  water-boat- 
men, or  Notonectidce,  —  are  brought  to  the  surface, 
wrathfully  skipping  around  in  the  dredger,  and 
sometimes  nimbly  hopping  back  into  the  brook 
just  as  they  are  about  to  be  transferred  to  the 
pail.  Well  do  I  remember  my  amazement,  one 
day  during  my  first  acquaintance  with  these  bee- 
tles, when,  having  transferred  my  silvery  treas- 
ures to  a  pan  of  water,  I  had  sat  down  to  watch 
them  as  they  swam  on  their  backs,  and,  suddenly, 
one,  the  prettiest  of  the  number,  having  turned 
over,  flew  straight  out  into  the  air,  passed  my  ear 
with  a  booming  sound  like  that  of  an  angry 


4  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

hornet ;  and  sailed  away  above  the  apple-trees, 
never  to  return.  I  have  ever  since  retained  a 
respect  for  the  flying  powers  of  the  Notonec- 
tidce. 


Water-boatmen.     Notonectidce. 

But  my  dredging  is  disturbed. 

"  What  you  catching  ?  Fish  ?  "  demands  a  voice, 
and  I  look  up  to  see  the  yellow  head  of  an  in- 
quisitive fourteen-year-old  youth  peering  over  the 
bank. 

Evidently  he  may  have  been  watching  my  per- 
formances for  some  time,  unperceived. 

"Water-beetles,"  and  I  hold  up  my  pail  to 
show  the  contents. 

"  What  are  they  good  for  ?  "  proceeds  the  utili- 
tarian. 

I  hesitate  a  moment.  Shall  I  tell  him  of  the 
decaying  leaves  that  these  numerous  Hydroplii- 
lidce  devour,  assisted  by  these  pond-snails  ;  of  the 
yearly  plague  of  frogs  from  which  we  are  de- 


DREDGING  NOTES.  5 

livered  by  the  disappearance  of  the  juices  of  the 
polliwogs  through  the  proboscides  of  these  water- 
boatmen  ;  of  the  multitudes  of  mosquitoes  that 
never  have  a  chance  to  bite  us,  because  as  wig- 
glers  they  have  met  their  fate  under  the  masks 
of  these  dragon-fly  larvae  ?  I  excuse  myself  from 
this  lecture  on  zoology,  and  make  answer,  "  I 
take  them  home  and  keep  them,  and  study  their 
habits." 

The  boy  eyes  me  suspiciously.  Evidently  that 
answer  is  not  satisfactory  to  his  mind.  He  thinks 
I  am  trying  to  cover  up  some  great  secret,  some 
profound  mystery  that  I  object  to  his  understand- 
ing. 

He  has  constructed  a  theory  of  his  own.  Per- 
haps he  lay  awake  nights  thinking  of  the  problem. 
He  may  have  done  so.  I  have  been  here  often 
enough  to  excite  the  curiosity  of  any  one  who  has 
observed  me. 

He  has  an  idea.  He  will  throw  it  at  me  and 
see  if  I,  the  guilty  criminal,  do  not  start  when 
my  secret  plans  are  so  openly  disclosed. 

He  puts  the  momentous  question. 

"  Do  you  make  them  into  medicine  ?  "  he  cries. 

He  eyes  me  as  I  repudiate  the  charge.  I  think 
he  is  persuaded  in  his  own  mind  that  he  has 
hit  on  the  exact  solution  of  the  mystery.  I  am 
a  concoctor  of  horrible  drugs.  I  fear  that  I 
am  henceforth  to  be  classed  by  him  with  those 
Chinese  medicos  who  are  rumored  to  concoct 


6  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Celestial  medicine  from   horned   toads  and  like 
crawling  things. 

Another  large  dragon-fly  larva  comes  to  the 
surface  accompanied  by  two  or  three  polliwogs. 
I  remember  being  present  at  the  massacre  of  a 
small  company  of  polliwogs  by  some  dragon-fly 
larvae.  The  cool  deliberation  with  which  one  of 
those  larvae,  in  particular,  would  crawl  cautiously 
up  a  stick  inside  of  the  bottle,  and,  holding  on 
near  the  end,  would  wait  there  until  one  of  those 
black,  immature  toads  came  within  reach,  was 
terrible.  Nearer  came  the  polliwog,  wriggling 
happily  through  the  water,  all  un- 
conscious of  danger ;  and  the  larva, 
throwing  out  its  mask  and  drawing 
it  back  again  over  the  mouth  so  sud- 
denly that  the  mask  was  just  per- 
ceptible, would  take  a  bite  out  of  the 
polliwog.  The  poor  victim  would  go 
rushing  on,  and  the  larva,  having 
disposed  of  one  mouthful,  would  pat 
its  head  with  one  foot,  as  if  to  pack 
the  first  morsel  safely  in,  and  then 

WOuld    1>each    °Ut    aild    take    another 

bite  from  the  next  polliwog  that 
came  within  reach,  without  reference  at  all  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  not  the  same  polliwog  to  which 
the  first  mouthful  belonged.  Meantime,  the  other 
dragon-fly  larvae  on  the  bottom  of  the  jar  were 
taking  their  meals  in  much  the  same  fashion. 


DREDGING  NOTES.  1 

Such  a  sight  gives  one  an  idea  of  the  multitudes 
of  little  tragedies  that  are  enacted  below  the  sur- 
faces of  ponds  by  these  ferocious-looking  larvae 
and  their  victims. 

But  vengeance  frequently  overtakes  the  mur- 
derers. When  the  time  draws  nigh  for  moulting 
the  skin  and  appearing  with  wings,  then  is  the 
critical  period  of  dragon-fly  life.  I  recollect  one 
wretch  of  a  larva,  that  had  spent  his  water-life  as 
a  blood-thirsty  tyrant  over  the  smaller  creatures  ; 
but  when  the  time  arrived  for  moulting,  he  did 
not  bravely  crawl  up  a  stick  out  of  the  water,  and, 
seizing  the  end  of  the  stick  with  his  six  legs,  pro- 
ceed to  make  an  opening  in  the  upper  part  of  his 
back,  and  come  out  of  that  improvised  door,  after 
the  common  manner  of  dragon-flies.  He  seemed 
to  be  in  a  very  excited  frame  of  mind,  climbed 
the  stick,  tumbled  off  on  the  floor,  and  crawled 
vigorously  around  in  all  directions,  evidently  in 
great  trouble.  At  last,  after  half  a  day  or  more 
of  such  excited  actions,  he  did  manage  to  break  a 
way  through  his  casement  and  come  forth  ;  but, 
alas,  he  was  never  able  to  straighten  out  more 
than  one  of  his  four  wings.  The  others  remained 
immature,  or  wrapped  around  his  body,  and  all 
his  efforts  were  unavailing.  He  died  in  the 
struggle,  and  the  ants  were  his  undertakers. 

None  of  the  smaller  dragon-fly  larvae  of  the 
Agrionidce,  that  I  have  ever  seen  make  their  en- 
trance into  the  air-world,  have  had  such  trouble 


8  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

as  the  larger  ones  seem  sometimes  subject  to. 
The  moult  is  often  over,  and  the  dragon-fly  is 
ready  for  flight  in  an  hour  or  two  from  the  time 
of  the  beginning  of  the  performance.  It  is  easy 
to  know  when  one  of  the  larvaB  is  about  to  moult, 
since,  for  a  day  or  less  before  this  event,  the 
larvae  are  in  the  habit  of  crawling  up  the  stick 
that  is  always  left  in  the  jar  to  serve  as  a  sort  of 
ladder,  and  of  staying  near  the  surface  of  the 
water,  occasionally  putting  their  heads  out  into 
the  air.  It  is  an  interesting  sight  to  watch  the 
dragon-fly,  after  moulting,  when  the  wings  are 
gradually  being  drawn  out  to  their  full  size,  the 
fine  veinings  slowly  becoming  more  and  more 
distinct,  spots  of  green  or  blue,  markings  of  brown 
and  yellow,  or  shades  of  pink  and  straw-color  are 
making  their  appearance,  while  the  dragon-fly  oc- 
casionally lifts  one  foot  and  passes  it  over  its 
head,  moving  the  joint  of  the  neck  and  bobbing 
the  head  up  and  down,  as  if  to  be  sure  that  it  is 
securely  fastened  on,  and  has  not  become  loose  in 
the  pulling  off  of  that  skin  overcoat. 

Once  in  a  while  a  dragon-fly  makes  a  mistake, 
and  leaves  one  leg  behind  him  in  his  haste  to  get 
out  of  his  old  dress  ;  but  there  is  no  going  back 
and  looking  in  pockets  for  anything  that  may  be 
missed.  Such  a  dragon-fly  is  henceforth  five- 
footed,  and  seems  to  suffer  but  little  inconven- 
ience from  the  lack  of  the  sixth  member,  except 
that  in  crawling  there  appears  to  be  an  inclina- 


DREDGING  NOTES. 


tion  to  tip  slightly  toward  the  side  that  has  not 
enough  support.  The  small  dragon-fly  larvae  seem 
to  be  a  fraction  less  ferocious  than  the  large  ones, 
and  to  them  we  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude,  since 
they  make  a  point  of  consuming  as  many  mos- 
quito-larvae as  can  be  obtained. 

The  mask  of  the  dragon-fly  is  somewhat  like 
that  ancient  implement  known  as  a  "  catch-poll," 
wherewith  officers  of  the  law  were  wont  to  appre- 
hend criminals  who  were  taking  to  their  feet  for 
liberty.  The  poll- 
part  of  the  instru- 
ment being  about 
six  feet  long  was 
fitted  with  an  ingen- 
ious steel  apparatus 
at  the  end  consist- 
ing of  two  V-shaped 
arms  and  a  collar. 
The  arms  being  flex- 
ible the  head  of  the 
offender  was  allowed 
to  slip  past  them, 
but  when  the  collar 
was  once  around  his 
neck  he  was  securely  held,  and  then  the  officer 
calmly  dragged  his  victim  to  prison,  or  pushed 
him  there,  as  suited  the  offended  administrator 
of  the  law.  Some  collars  of  the  "catch-polls" 
had  rows  of  sharp  spikes  set  round  them,,  so  that 


Mask  of  Libellula  dragon-fly  larva. 


10  UP  AND  DO  WN   THE  BROOKS. 

if  the  offenders  struggled  they  might  be  hurt. 
But  the  dragon-fly  larva's  "  catch-poll  "  disposes 
of  the  offender  at  once. 

Woe  is  me  !     A  piping  voice  cleaves  the  air. 

"  You  catching  fish  ?  " 

Verily,  the  nature  of  the  small  boy  has  not 
changed  much  since  Wood  wrote  :  "  At  the  best 
of  times  the  microscopic  angler  is  sure  to  be  beset 
with  inquisitive  boys  of  all  sizes,  who  cannot  be- 
lieve that  any  one  can  use  a  net  in  a  pond  except 
for  the  purpose  of  catching  fish,  and  is  therefore 
liable  to  have  his  sanity  called  in  question,  and 
his  proceedings  greatly  disturbed."  Wood  goes 
on  to  give  as  a  remedy  for  this  evil  the  adminis- 
tration to  the  small  boy  of  "  soft-sawder  and  a 
few  pence."  Perhaps  the  California  boy  is  not 
so  avaricious  as  his  English  cousin.  At  least,  I 
have  usually  found  the  first  half  of  this  prescrip- 
tion sufficient,  without  the  administration  of  the 
second. 

Truth  compels  me  to  state,  however,  that  some 
of  my  small  allies  have  assisted  me  with  the  not 
improbable  hope  that  some  little  fish  might  come 
up  with  the  beetles  in  the  dredger,  and  that  these 
fish  might  become  the  property  of  the  boys,  who 
are  prone  to  have  wild  hopes  of  raising  fish  in 
tin  cans,  —  albeit  such  schemes  usually  end  in  the 
fish's  living  a  few  days  on  bread-crumbs,  and  then 
expiring,  to  the  owner's  grief. 

But  the  small  boy,  when  once  enlisted  in  the 


DREDGING  NOTES.  11 

work,  becomes  a  most  enthusiastic  ally.  In  fact, 
he  soon  ceases  to  occupy  that  position,  and  be- 
comes commander  of  the  expedition  himself.  So 
very  enthusiastic  does  he  become  at  times,  that 
he  splashes  around  in  such  a  manner  as  to  im- 
press even  the  most  stupid  kinds  of  bugs  with 
the  idea  that  danger  is  near,  and  consequently 
they  seek  their  hiding-places  with  such  rapidity 
that  search  after  them  sometimes  is  useless,  in 
spite  of  the  small  boy's  well-meant  zeal.  This  in- 
dividual is  useful,  however,  in  reaching  for  spe- 
cimens, which  can  be  had  only  by  standing  in 
muddy  places,  or  on  precipitous  declivities  where 
a  woman  might  find  difficult  footing.  I  owe  at 
least  one  good  specimen  of  a  water-inhabitant  to 
a  small  boy's  zeal  —  a  fact  that  I  have  often 
thought  of  with  compunction,  inasmuch  as,  just 
before  receiving  the  specimen,  I  had  publicly 
reviled  this  same  small  boy  as  being  one  who 
intended  to  keep  my  dredger  all  day  and  allow 
me  no  use  of  it  whatever.  But  the  three  brown- 
headed  intruders  who  now  plunge  down  the  bank 
have  urgent  business  on  hand. 

"What  are  you  after?"  I  ask,  by  way  of  re- 
turn catechism. 

"  Red-legs,"  responds  one  freckled  urchin,  mak- 
ing a  dive  into  the  brook,  and  on  being  questioned 
further,  it  appears  that  this  is  the  name  of  a  spe- 
cies of  frog  that  the  boys  hope  to  sell  for  a  fabu- 
lous sum  to  a  mysterious  Frenchman.  But  no 


12  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

such  frog  appears,  and  they  run  on  farther  up  the 
creek  to  continue  their  search. 

Here  and  there,  on  the  leaves  or  chips  that 
float  in  the  water,  or  on  the  grasses  that  hang 
into  the  stream,  one  finds  clear,  yellowish  jelly 
drops,  as  big  as  dew-drops,  or  perhaps  larger. 
To  those  who  have  kept  these  drops  and  seen 
their  final  outcome,  they  are  known  as  the  eggs 
of  the  common  pond-snail.  Dear  to  my  memory 
is  the  first  little  pond-snail  that  ever  hatched  in 
my  own  bottle  of  snail-eggs.  How  eagerly  from 
day  to  day  I  had  gazed  into  the  depths  of  the 
water  in  my  bottle,  hoping  amid  the  grains  of 
sand  and  specks  of  leaves  to  see  some  move- 
ment indicating  life,  and  how  rapturously,  on  the 
twenty-sixth  day  of  my  search,  did  I  see  through 
my  microscope  the  motion  of  a  little  thing  about 
half  as  big  as  a  pin-head.  The  speck  grew,  and 
behold,  it  had  a  wonderful  little  shell,  and,  at 
last,  one  day  I  attained  the  height  of  my  ambi- 
tion in  snail-culture,  for  I  scraped  the  clinging 
sand  from  the  minute  object,  and  there  was  re- 
vealed to  my  admiring  gaze  the  baby  snail,  the 
little  black  whorls  of  its  tiny  shell  as  perfect  as 
those  of  the  biggest  of  the  family. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  snails  that  I  have 
found  in  this  brook;  the  "left-hand,"  the  flat, 
and  the  "  right  -  hand  "  snails.  They  all  have 
the  same  meek,  quiet  nature.  In  regard  to  their 
appellations,  if  you  hold  the  shell  of  one  of  these 


DREDGING  NOTES.  13 

snails  with  the  apex  up  and  the  opening  facing 
you,  that  opening  may  seem  to  be  either  on  the 
left  or  on  the  right ;  that  is,  it  may  be  either  a 
sinistral  aperture  or  a  dextral  one.  If  the  former, 
the  snail  belongs  to  the  PJiysa  division.  You 
can  see  such  snails  floating  wrong  side  up  in  these 
pools,  taking  a  swim  after  their  own  peculiar 
fashion.  I  think  that  while  on  these  swimming 
excursions  the  snails  are  sometimes  brought  into 
contact  with  the  polliwogs.  I  saw  a  pond-snail 
swimming  once  when  a  polliwog  was  very  persis- 
tent in  his  attentions  to  it  as  it  floated  on  top  of 
the  water.  A  boy  who  was  with  me  was  much 
interested  in  the  performance,  thinking,  I  sup- 
pose, that  the  snail  was  about  to  be  eaten. 

The  snails  themselves  (I  am  now  speaking  of 
PJiysa)  are  black,  or  very  nearly  that  color.  One 
can  observe  the  flesh  when  the  snail  is  swimming 
or  walking.  When  it  is  dead  its  shell  is  of  a 
lighter  shade,  a  grayish  or  yellowish  color. 

The  method  of  swimming  has  been  variously 
described  as  "  clinging  with  their  foot  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,"  and  as  a  "  creeping  on  the 
under  surface  of  the  air,"  that  is,  on  the  layer  of 
air  next  to  the  pond.  It  is  a  queer  performance 
to  watch,  for  the  shell  and  the  creature  in  it  look 
weighty  enough  to  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  pool, 
yet  the  swimming  or  floating  goes  on. 

There  are  much  smaller  snails  in  this  brook. 
One  finds  them  only  occasionally,  at  least  at  cer- 


14  •    UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

tain  seasons  of  the  year,  I  think.  They  are  the 
flat  ones  that  have  all  the  whorls  of  their  shells 
in  the  same  plane.  These  snails  belong  to  the 
old  genus  Planorbis. 

It  is  not  particularly  wise  to  leave  a  snail-bottle 
open.  Close  it  with  mosquito-bar,  for  otherwise 
you  will  be  likely  to  come  back  after  leaving  your 
bottle  and  find  out  that  your  biggest  and  there- 
fore supposedly  your  most  intelligent  pond-snail 
has  walked  out  of  the  jar,  deposited  himself  on 
the  steps  in  the  hot  sun,  been  unable  to  extricate 
himself  from  his  difficulty,  and  find  his  road  back 
to  the  water  in  the  bottle,  and  so  has  perished, 
miserably  broiled  to  death.  So  much  intelligence 
has  the  pond-snail. 

It  is  said  that,  in  Rome,  the  present  of  a  snail 
on  a  certain  festival  was  a  symbol  of  renewed 
friendship.  I  can  well  believe  it,  for  although  I 
suppose  it  was  a  land-snail,  yet  snails  whether  on 
the  earth  or  in  the  water  are  most  peaceable  crea- 
tures, and  usually  set  a  much  better  example  to 
the  quarrelsome  beetles  than  thoje  creatures  are 
willing  to  follow. 

Pick  up  any  stick  that  you  may  find  that  has 
lain  long  in  the  water,  and  you  can  gather  pond- 
snails  from  it.  They  hang  on  the  water-weeds 
also,  where  those  dip  into  the  pools,  and  if  the 
snails  are  gathered  and  kept  a  few  days  in  the 
spring,  their  eggs  will  be  found  on  the  sides  of 
the  jar. 


DREDGING  NOTES.  15 

Yet  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  there  is  not 
much  character  to  a  pond-snail.  To  slip  out  of 
a  mass  of  jelly  with  one's  house  on  one's  back,  to 
float  on  the  surface  of  a  pond,  to  dine  on  leaves 
or  confer  vae,  to  rest  when  weary  and  to  journey 
when  so  disposed,  to  retreat  into  one's  house  when 
in  danger,  to  pass  along  through  life  in  a  some- 
what humdrum  fashion  with  small  spirit  or  vim 
in  one,  to  cleanse  the  pool  the  little  one  may,  and 
finally  to  drop  down  through  the  water  and  whiten 
with  one's  lifeless  shell  the  slime  of  the  pond,  to 
have  that  slime  close  at  last  over  one's  shell  and 
leave  one  buried  in  oblivion  while  all  the  pond- 
life  goes  on  above  one  still,  —  this  is  a  snail's  life. 
Devoid  of  fighting  instincts,  not  gifted  with  am- 
bition to  soar  like  the  beetles,  or  to  be  ever  in 
sight  like  the  skaters,  treating  all  the  pond- 
neighbors  with  quiet  reserve,  going  one's  own 
way  and  doing  much  good  in  the  world,  such  is 
the  pond-snail.  If  he  is  not  brilliant,  he  is  good, 
and  what  more  could  be  asked  of  him  ? 

There  is  a  stir  in  the  grass  at  the  top  of  the 
bank. 

"  What  do  you  s'pose  she  's  getting  ?  "  says 
one  low  voice. 

A  bug-hunter  learns  to  listen  and  generally 
hears  much  that  is  said  about  dredging. 

"  Fish,  I  guess,"  answers  another  boy,  confi- 
dently ;  and  they  pass  on,  leaving  me  to  climb 
the  bank  and  wend  my  way  homeward,  battling 


16  UP  AND   DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

all  the  time  with  two  or  three  obstreperous  water- 
boatmen,  that  with  buzzings  of  defiance  are  en- 
deavoring to  climb  the  sides  of  the  pail  and  take 
flight  back  to  the  brook  from  which  I  have  just 
drawn  them. 


CHAPTER  II. 


WATER-SCORPIONS. 

"  I  do  desire  we  may  be  better  strangers." 

As  You  Like  It. 

A  SMALL  boy  stood  beside  the  brook,  gazing 
intently  at  my  exertions.  His 
cheeks  were  very  rosy  and  a  wide 
patch  of  mud  adorned  either  side 
of  his  mouth.  The  brook  evi- 
dently had  attractions  for  him, 
but  he  was  dissatisfied  with  the 
present  results  of  dredging. 

"  Say,  did  you  ever  catch  them 
kind  of  bugs  that  look  like 
shrimps  ?  "  asked  he,  after  eying 
my  bottle.  "  Not  just  like  them, 
either.  There 's  one,  now  "  —  and  the  dredger 
came  up  with  an  ill-looking  scorpion-bug  clinging 
to  it. 

"  One  of  them  fellers  caught  hold  of  me  once," 
he  went  on,  confidentially,  —  "  right  hold  of  my 
thumb-nail,  and  he  just  held  on  and  pulled  till 
my  thumb-nail  came  out.  It's  growed  again, 
though,"  and,  in  proof  of  his  thrilling  tale,  he 


Water-scorpion. 


18  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

held  up  to  view  a  thumb  that  certainly  showed 
no  trace  of  the  dire  combat  described. 


Scorpion-bug  bearing  epaulette,  —  rather  enlarged. 

"  What  did  you  do  with  the  bug  ?  "  I  asked. 

u  Killed  him,"  responded  the  youth. 

When  bumble-bees  buzz  round  the  blackberry 
blossoms  in  April,  occasionally  one  finds  in  this 
brook  a  female  scorpion-bug  bearing  her  eggs  on 
her  back,  looking  as  though  a  second  story  had 
been  built  on  top  of  her,  the  egg-mass  being  some- 
times as  thick  as  the  average  scorpion  -  bug's 
body.  The  eggs  are  placed  regularly,  standing 
up  from  the  wings.  On  one  such  bug's  back  I 
counted  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  eggs.  Per- 
haps I  was  slightly  mistaken,  as  the  work  of 
counting  was  somewhat  difficult,  but  that  must 
have  been  about  the  number. 

A  bug  bearing  such  a  burden  as  this  is  easily 
scared.  Solitary  confinement  literally  frightens 
the  creature  to  death.  Twice  I  have  attempted 
to  keep  such  a  bug  alone,  but  within  twenty-four 
hours  or  so  the  poor  prisoner  would  be  found 


WATER-SCORPIONS.  19 

floating,  dead.     Mrs.  Scorpion-Bug  evidently  ob- 
jects to  being  monarch  of  all  she  surveys. 

Some  scorpion-bugs  carry  merely  a  few  eggs, 
and  do  not  cover  their  backs  entirely.  One  of 
my  scorpion-bugs  used  to  go  wandering  around 
the  bottle  carrying  half-a-dozen  eggs  or  so  as  a 
kind  of  epaulette  on  her  right  shoulder,  the  rest 
of  her  back  being  bare.  A  full  covering  of  eggs 
makes  a  scorpion  look  as  though  she  had  the  un- 
even, brown  outside  of  an  acorn-cup  on  her  back. 
One  finds  these  cast-off  egg-foundations  in  the 
water.  The  eggs  do  not  seem  to  be  very  tightly 
fastened  to  the  bug's  back,  and  hitting  against 
other  beetles  or  pieces  of  wood  loosens  the  egg- 
mass  till  it  comes  off  whole  and  floats  in  the 
water. 

If  one  of  these  egg-burdened  bugs  dies,  the 
egg-mass  may  easily  be  separated  from  her  back, 
but  I  do  not  think  that  the  eggs  will  hatch.  At 
least,  my  experiments  in  trying  to  keep  such  eggs 
till  hatching  have  proved  unsuccessful.  Occa- 
sionally I  have  found  in  the  jar  on  a  stick  eggs 
of  the  same  shape  evidently  deposited  by  other 
scorpion  -  bugs.  The  baby  scorpion  -  bugs  are 
miniatures  of  their  parents,  looking  a  little  like 
a  lot  of  infant  squash -bugs  that  had  suddenly 
taken  a  fancy  to  swimming.  Once  in  a  while 
one  will  see  a  youthful  bug  catch  a  tadpole  half 
as  big  as  himself.  Mosquito- wrigglers  form  part 
of  the  bill  of  fare  also. 


20  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

But  the  lives  of  the  infant  murderers  are  gen- 
erally short  in  my  bottles.  The  young  scorpion- 
bugs  stay  about  the  surface  of  the  water,  heads 
downward,  and  the  bigger  bugs  evidently  consider 
them  as  so  many  joints  of  meat  hung  up  at  the 
butchers  to  be  hastily  disposed  of  by  customers. 
The  baby  scorpions  must  do  a  deal  of  dodging 
about  in  the  brook. 

I  believe  that  it  is  Herodotus  who,  among 
other  truthful  accounts  of  the  Neuroi  who  once 
a  year  become  were-wolves,  and  the  Argippaioi 
who  were  bald  and  snub-nosed  from  their  birth, 
speaks  also  of  the  Issedones  who,  according  to  his 
account,  used  to  devour  their  dead  parents  with 
great  pomp  and  ceremony.  This  order  of  things 
is  quite  reversed  among  the  Water  -  scorpions  ; 
that  is,  the  parents  devour  the  children,  but  there 
is  no  pomp  and  ceremony  about  the  performance. 
And  from  all  I  have  seen  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  infants  would  willingly  follow  the  custom  of 
the  Issedones  if  size  would  permit. 

The  large  scorpion-bugs,  when  kept  in  a  bottle, 
have  a  habit  of  choosing  some  chip  or  bit  of  wood 
and  using  it  as  a  raft,  half-a-dozen  or  so  of  the 
bugs  climbing  upon  it  and  going  sailing  up  and 
down  from  the  surface  to  the  bottom  of  the  water, 
back  and  forth,  on  their  improvised  bark.  One 
does  not  see  the  other  water-inhabitants  taking 
such  rides,  as  a  general  thing.  The  only  excep- 
tions that  I  remember  are  the  "  Whirligig  " 


WATER-SCORPIONS.  21 

beetles,  and  their  rafts  are  as  much  smaller  as 
they  themselves  are  smaller  than  the  scorpion- 
bugs.  Other  water  -  creatures  crawl  over  the 
pieces  of  wood,  to  be  sure,  but  they  do  not  seem 
to  care  about  sailing.  It  seems  to  be  an  amuse- 
ment original  with  the  scorpion-bugs. 

If  one  comes  upon  the  jar  suddenly,  one  will 
see  the  scorpions  making  a  hurried  descent  to  the 
bottom  of  the  jar,  their  wicked-looking  front  legs 
thrust  out  before  them.  Arriving  at  the  bottom 
and  becoming  assured  almost  immediately  that 
there  is  no  real  danger,  they  seize  something, 
perhaps  a  cast-off  egg-foundation,  and  rise  with  it 
to  the  surface  of  the  water  once  more.  Scorpion- 
bugs  have  a  habit,  when  sitting  or  hanging  on  a 
piece  of  wood  in  the  water,  of  passing  the  front 
feet  over  the  head,  as  one  sees  a  fly  do. 

These  water  -  scorpions  have  often  a  peculiar 
sign  that  precedes  their  death.  A  few  days  be- 
fore that  event  the  body  gapes  wide  open,  as 
though  the  creature  had  been  sliced  by  a  knife 
which  had  been  passed  horizontally  under  the 
wings,  between  them  and  the  body,  leaving  the  two 
pressed  widely  apart.  This  gaping  of  the  body 
is  generally,  though  perhaps  not  always,  a  fatal 
sign,  and  it  is  certainly  a  very  noticeable  one. 
When  the  cold  days  of  winter  come,  one  will  some- 
times find  the  bottom  of  the  jar  covered  with  dead 
scorpion-bugs,  their  bodies  gaping  wide  open. 

But  words  cannot  describe  the  horrifying  ap- 


22 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


pearance  of  lively  scorpion-bugs.  One  might  well 
think  a  company  of  them  to  be  a  sight  of  the 
"  nightmare  and  her  ninefold."  However,  I  think 
that  most  of  their  threatening  actions  are  merely 
expressions  of  fright,  they  being  as  anxious  to 
escape  as  most  people  are  to  let  them  go.  But 
this  variety,  the  length  of  which  is  only  about 
thirteen  sixteenths  of  an  inch  and  the  width  six 
or  seven  sixteenths  in  the  broadest  part  of  the 
back,  becomes  insignificant  when  one  thinks  of  its 


Belostoma  grandis. 

near  Brazilian  relative,  Belostoma  grandis,  a  full- 
grown  specimen  of  which  is  about  five  inches 
long,  the  wings  when  spread  measuring  from  tip 
to  tip  more  than  seven  inches.  Methinks  it 
might  require  some  courage  to  explore  a  Brazil- 


WATER-SCORPIONS.  23 

ian  brook,  since  one  is  apt  to  give  a  nervous 
jump  now  and  then  even  after  one  has  kept  these 
small  scorpion-bugs  in  captivity  for  months  and 
has  become  somewhat  accustomed  to  their  alarm- 
ing appearance  and  actions. 

The  water-scorpions  of  this  brook  do  not  pos- 
sess the  thin  breathing-tube  with  which  the  bod- 
ies of  some  (Nepa)  of  this  family  terminate.  I 
found  in  this  water,  however,  one  tube -bearing 
member  of  the  Nepi- 
dce,  a  Ranatra.  As  all 
know  who  have  found 
this  creature,  Ranatra 
is  long  and  lank,  look- 
ing like  a  quite  thick 
black  darning  -  needle 
that  had  taken  to  itself 
six  bent  pine-needles 
for  legs  and  two  more 
for  breathing  -tube. 
My  Ranatra  was  about 
two  -  and-a-half  inches 
long,  and  his  thin  self 
bore  no  resemblance  at  My  Ranatra< 

all  to  his  cousins,  the  flat,  broad,  brown  scor- 
pion-bugs. 

Poor  Ranatra !  "  The  best  in  this  kind  are 
but  shadows."  It  was  difficult  for  people,  on  his 
first  acquaintance,  to  believe  that  he  was  really 
"  done."  He  looked  more  like  the  skeleton 


24  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

framework  of  an  insect  than  like  a  finished  bug. 
I  remember  once  having  explained  the  metamor- 
phoses of  the  larvaB  of  a  water-beetle  and  of  those 
of  dragon-flies  to  a  looker  at  my  captives,  and, 
at  the  end  of  my  zealous  discourse,  the  listener 
pointed  through  the  glass  at  poor  Ranatra  and 
said,  "  And  what  does  that  one  turn  into  ?  " 

In  Wood's  "  Trespassers/'  the  naturalist  men- 
tions a  Ranatra  that  was  caught  by  a  girl  and 
named  "  Daddy,"  from  its  resemblance  to  a 
Daddy-long-legs  fly  without  wings.  The  natu- 
talist  goes  on  to  say  that  Daddy  and  the  girl 
ilad  fights  together,  in  which  the  girl  irritated 
the  insect  with  a  pencil,  and  Daddy  struck 
back  again.  "  The  courage  of  Daddy  and  the 
force  of  the  blows  which  he  delivered  on  the 
pencil  were  well  worthy  of  notice." 

My  mind  being  wrought  up  by  this  account  of 
battle,  I  resolved  to  wage  war  boldly  with  my 
Ranatra,  also.  The  choice  of  weapons  being  mine, 
I  took  a  white  stick  and  proceeded  to  make  all 
manner  of  passes  and  raps  at  Ranatra.  But  I 
grieve  to  state  that  Ranatra  was  a  coward.  This 
was  certainly  true.  He  fled  dismayed  from  the 
combat,  and,  standing  upside  down,  endeavored 
to  hide  his  head  in  a  hole.  Perseveringly  I  chased 
him  from  his  hiding-places,  but  not  a  blow  would 
he  give  back.  Peaceable  creature !  The  only 
time  that  I  ever  knew  him  to  manifest  what  could 
be  construed  as,  perchance,  gestures  of  meek- 


WA  TER-SCORPJONS.  25 

mannered  anger  was  when  I  prodded  him  mali- 
ciously until  he  was  forced  to  let  go  his  hold  on  a 
beetle,  the  life-juice  of  which  he  was  in  the  rap- 
tures of  sucking.  This  bold  interference  with  his 
dinner-rights  caused  a  few  clawings  with  his  fore- 
legs, but  that  was  all. 

Ranatra's  long  breathing-tube  was  quite  flexi- 
ble, being  attached  to  the  body  in  such  a  way  that 
he  could  allow  some  stick  or  leaf  to  bend  it  at 
quite  an  angle,  until  one  dreaded  the  next  minute 
seeing  the  tube  snap  off,  and  wondered  what  in 
the  world  Ranatra  would  do  then.  Yet  no  acci- 
dent ever  happened. 

His  second  and  third  pairs  of  thin  legs  were 
fringed  with  very  fine  hairs,  scarcely  noticeable 
without  the  microscope,  unless  seen  in  the  right 
light.  He  could  hold  up  his  fore  feet  in  the  same 
reverential  attitude  that  the  land-insect,  the  Man- 
tis, employs  when  waiting  for  prey,  when,  as  old 
De  Mouffet  said,  "  It  alwaies  holds  up  its  fore  feet 
like  hands,  praying  as  it  were  after  the  manner 
of  the  Diviners,  who  in  that  gesture  did  pour  out 
their  supplications  to  their  gods,"  The  attitude 
had  about  as  much  religious  significance  in  my 
Ranatra  as  in  the  Mantis.  Small  dragon-fly  lar- 
vae (Agrion)  were  tid  -  bits  for  Ranatra.  His 
rounded  head  with  its  sharp  bill  was  very  sug- 
gestive of  that  of  a  minute  bird.  His  eyes  were 
very  prominent,  standing  out  in  round,  black  balls 
upon  his  head. 


26  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

If  ever  a  bug  was  a  hypocrite  it  was  Ranatra. 
I  have  seen  him  when  a  water-boatman  would 
come  and  perch  on  his  back.  Ranatra  would  be 
perfectly  quiet.  He  knew  he  had  been  taken  for 
a  stick,  which  he  so  much  resembled,  and  a  stick 
he  would  be.  And  when  the  water-boatman  sud- 
denly took  to  its  oars  once  more,  not  the  slight- 
est motion  showed  that  Ranatra  was  alive.  He 
would  hang  poised  over  an  unconscious  bug,  like 
Damocles'  sword,  but,  though  long  delayed,  at 
some  sudden  moment,  the  sword  became  alive, 
and  piercing  the  unfortunate  bug  finished  its  life. 

I  think  Ranatra  had  no  music  in  his  soul,  and 
he  probably  never  missed  the  bird-twitterings  of 
his  native  brook.  As  a  personal  favor  and  a 
reminder  of  the  days  when  he  lived  in  the  creek, 
I  sometimes  took  a  flute  and  played  "  'Way  down 
upon  the  Swanee  River "  close  to  his  jar.  But 
the  calmness  with  which  he  received  the  serenade 
was  only  equal  to  that  with  which  he  usually  sur- 
veyed the  world  when  no  music  was  going  on. 
Neither  the  "  growly  "  nor  the  "  squeaky  "  parts 
of  the  piano  affected  his  nerves,  even  when  his 
bottle  was  placed  touching  the  instrument  next 
the  keys.  It  was  fitting,  however,  that  music 
should  have  no  charms  for  such  a  deceiver  as 
Ranatra.  Does  not  Shakespeare  say,  — 

"  The  "  (bug)  "  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  moved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils  ?  " 


WATER-SCORPIONS.  27 

For  all  of  which  Ranatra  was  most  eminently 
fitted.  Many  a  time  had  I  thought  Ranatra 
dead,  but  the  rascal  came  to  life  a  few  minutes 
afterward.  So,  one  day,  when  I  had  had  him  in 
my  possession  about  nine  months,  I  hardly  be- 
lieved him  dead  upon  finding  him  lying  prone  in 
the  water.  He  had  shammed  so  much  that  I 
hustled  him  around  shamefully  before  I  believed 
the  fact  of  his  decease.  But  Ranatra  was  truly 
dead  this  time.  I  put  him  in  a  separate  jar  of 
water,  having  a  faint  hope  that  he  might  revive 
during  the  night,  but  in  the  morning  he  was  still 
limp,  and  a  couple  of  pond-snails,  one  on  each 
side  of  him,  were  performing  the  last  kind  of- 
fice for  the  dead  in  cleansing  Ranatra  from  the 
green  scum  that  had  attached  itself  to  him. 

Peace  to  his  ashes.  I  did  not  know  how  I 
loved  him  until  he  died.  Never  did  I  part  from 
a  bug  with  such  regret.  No  post-mortem  exami- 
nation that  I  could  have  made  would  have  revealed 
the  cause  of  his  death.  Perhaps  it  was  old  age, 
since  he  was  fully  grown  to  all  appearances  when 
I  found  him,  and  wise  men  tell  us  that  the  life  of 
an  insect  is  often  not  much  more  than  a  year  in 
length.  It  may  be  he  was  Ranatra  the  Aged. 
The  jar  looked  lonely  without  him,  he  had  lived 
in  it  so  long,  and  I  felt  half  inclined  to  think 
that,  in  spite  of  his  having  dwelt  with  them  so 
securely  for  so  long  a  time,  he  had  at  last  fallen 
a  victim  to  some  of  those  cowardly  cousins  of  his, 


28  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

the  scorpion-bugs.  They  rushed  about  as  usual, 
evidently  caring  nothing  for  the  death  of  the  bug 
that  was  worth  twenty  of  them. 

Even  in  death  Ranatra  kept  those  fore  feet  held 
up  in  their  customary  reverential  attitude.  It 
was  enough  to  excite  superstition,  if  a  superstitious 
person  had  seen  him.  The  Rabbis  have  said  that 
locusts  were  made  out  of  the  superfluous  earth 
that  was  left  over  after  the  making  of  Adam. 
Mayhap  if  the  Rabbis  had  known  Ranatra,  they 
might  have  told  some  like  marvellous  tale  of  him. 
The  Rabbis  were  gifted  with  originality  of  state- 
ment, to  say  the  least,  for  did  they  not  say  that, 
when  Adam  wept  after  the  fall,  though  every 
beast  and  bird  hastened  to  mingle  their  tears  with 
his,  yet  the  locust  arrived  first,  on  account  of  its 
kindred  origin  with  Adam?  And,  furthermore, 
are  not  the  black  marks  on  the  locust's  wings 
Hebrew  characters,  wherein  may  be  read  this  : 
"  God  is  One ;  He  overcometh  the  mighty ;  the 
locusts  are  a  portion  of  His  army  which  He  sends 
against  the  wicked  "  ? 

To  be  sure,  Ben  Omar  says  that  the  prophet 
Mohammed  read  the  Hebrew  characters  differ- 
ently, for  he  made  them  out  to  signify  this : 
"  We  are  the  troops  of  the  Most  High  God  ;  we 
each  lay  ninety-nine  eggs.  If  we  were  to  lay  a 
hundred  we  should  devastate  the  whole  world." 
On  account  of  the  great  alarm  that  these  mys- 
terious words  raised  in  the  mind  of  the  Prophet 


WA  TER-SCORPIONS.  29 

it  was  granted  that  an  invocation  addressed  to 
Mohammed,  and  written  on  a  piece  of  paper  en- 
closed in  a  reed  planted  in  the  midst  of  a  wheat- 
field  or  of  an  orchard,  has  the  power  to  turn 
away  the  destructive  hordes  of  locusts  from  the 
portion  of  the  land  so  protected. 

And  when  I  recollect  that  the  Rabbis  were 
capable  of  making  additions  to  the  Scriptures  so 
startling  as  that  in  the  Targums  which  says  that 
when  the  plague  of  locusts  in  the  land  of  Egypt 
was  disappearing  before  the  wind,  those  insects 
that  the  Egyptians  had  fried  or  pickled  and  laid 
by  in  store  for  food  were  blown  away  from  the 
land  in  company  with  the  live  ones,  I  am  not 
capable  of  imagining  what  those  Rabbis  might 
not  have  said  of  Ranatra,  had  they  known  that 
singular-looking  bug.  I  flatter  myself  that  they 
did  not  have  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance. 
Surely  if  they  had  they  would  have  mentioned  it. 
They  usually  mentioned  everything  they  did  know, 
and  perhaps  a  little  more.  Ranatra  did  not  real- 
ize how  thankful  he  ought  to  have  been  that  the 
Rabbis  never  saw  him.  Preposterous,  indeed, 
would  have  been  the  story  they  would  have  tacked 
to  his  name.  Ranatra  made  a  beautiful  corpse, 
calm  and  peaceful-looking. 

Let  no  evil  be  remembered  against  him.  He 
is  dead. 

**  Bid  him  farewell,  commit  him  to  the  grave  ; 
Do  him  that  Irimjpnnn  nnrLtiln  leave  of  him. ' ' 
SE  UBR 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  III. 

MY    WATER-LOVERS. 

IT  is  March.     Let  us  go  dredging  for  Water- 
Lovers,  alias  Hydrophilidce.     As   one    comes    to 
the    brook  on   such   a  day,   one   may 
glance    across    the    ravine,    and,    sud- 
denly, in    between  one's  self  and  the 
California      vision  of  green  fields  and    buttercups 

Hydrophi-  .,. 

Hdce.  will  come  some  fluttering  wings,  and 

a  dainty-looking  dark-brown  butterfly 
with  buff-colored  margins,  and  a  row  of  pale-blue 
spots  inside  those  margins  but  too  small  to  be  no- 
ticeable at  this  distance,  sits  down  on  the  opposite 
bank  to  sun  itself  beside  the  stream.  The  but- 
terfly that  our  English  friends  call  the  Camber- 
well  Beauty  —  Vanessa  Antiopa  —  has  come  to 
look  after  our  dredging.  This  creature  flaps  over 
our  back-yards  the  last  of  February,  and  instead 
of  appearing  "  with  ragged  and  faded  wings,"  as 
Harris  says  that  this  Vanessa  does  at  the  East, 
it  here  often  looks  as  fresh  and  new  as  if  just 
made. 

One  day  I  heard  a  sad  tale  about  this  Vanessa 
from  two  young  sinners  of  twelve  years  old  or  so 
that  I  found  enjoying  a  solitary  cigarette  between 


MY   WATER-LOVERS.  31 

them  in  the  seclusion  of  one  part  of  this  brook. 
The  lads  were  mightily  interested  in  my  dredging, 
albeit  they  looked  at  me  as  though  they  expected 
that  I  would  begin  a  sermon  on  the  evils  of  to- 
bacco. But  what  is  the  use  of  scolding  people 
who  are  so  evidently  aware  of  their  own  sinful- 
ness  ? 

I  refrained  from  criticism,  and  was  rewarded 
with  a  bit  of  information,  false  or  true.  A  Va- 
nessa of  this  sort  flew  by  in  the  course  of  our 
conversation,  and  the  boys  called  it  a  Japanese 
butterfly.  They  furthermore  solemnly  averred 
that  the  Japanese  ate  them.  One  of  the  boys 
even  said  that  he  had  seen  the  Japanese  do  it, 
pulling  off  the  wings  and  devouring  the  body. 
Whether  the  testimony  of  such  youngsters  is 
worth  anything  or  not,  I  leave  the  judicious 
reader  to  determine,  but  certainly,  if  I  were  in 
Vanessa's  place,  I  should  keep  as  far  away  from 
both  boys  and  Japanese  as  possible. 

When  March  is  nearly  over,  there  comes  an 
occasional  Orange-tip  butterfly  to  keep  Vanessa 
company.  In  March,  too,  one  passes  by  the  little 
white-and-black  kids  that  stand  on  the  sides  of 
the  brook  and  dance  along  its  precipices  or  stay 
in  the  safer  green  field  by  their  mothers. 

Burton  in  his  "  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  "  tells 
us  that  when  Jupiter  and  Juno  held  their  wed- 
ding-feast all  the  other  divinities  were  invited 
and  many  noblemen  besides,  and  among  them 


32  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

came  a  Persian  prince  named  Chrysalus,  a  very 
simple  person,  but  gorgeously  arrayed  in  golden 
attire.  And  the  assembly,  seeing  him  come  with 
such  pomp,  were  deceived,  and  rose  up  to  give 
place  to  so  noble  a  being.  But  Jupiter,  seeing 
what  a  fantastic,  idle  fellow  he  was,  turned  him 
and  his  followers  into  butterflies,  greatly  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  guests,  no  doubt.  If  this  be 
true,  how  comes  it  that  Vanessa  Antiopa  wears 
black  ?  Did  Vanessa  go  to  the  wedding-feast 
wearing  mourning  ? 

It  is  a  sad  fact  that  butterflies  are  intemperate 
at  times.  To  see  the  beautiful  things  flit  by  one 
would  never  think  them  guilty  of  such  indiscre- 
tion. But  a  friend  of  mine  informed  me  that 
just  beyond  these  foot-hills  he  had  seen  one  kind 
of  butterfly  on  the  buckeye-trees  and  could  almost 
have  taken  the  creatures  with  his  hand.  He  sup- 
posed them  to  have  been  intoxicated  with  the 
fragrant  flowers.  I  can  well  believe  it,  for,  if  I 
were  a  butterfly  myself,  it  seems  to  me  no  flower 
would  delight  me  more  than  the  dense  white 
panicles  of  the  buckeye.  Mr.  Scudder  gives  a 
similar  instance  of  the  Tiger  Swallow-tail  butter- 
flies being  overcome  with  lilac  blossoms. 

If  you  look  across  the  brook,  you  may  see  a 
man  who  fully  realizes  Bacon's  assertion,  that 
mustard-seed  "  hath  in  it  a  property  and  spirit 
hastily  to  get  up  and  spread,"  for  that  laborer  is 
gathering  the  yellow  -  flowered  weed,  and  has  a 


MY    WATER-LOVERS.  33 

bundle  of  it  at  his  side.  Down  by  the  water's 
edge  the  blackberries  are  in  bloom,  and  in  the 
grass  on  the  sides  are  tufts  of  sorrel,  reminding 
one  of  ancient  Gerarde  and  his  assertion  that 
the  wood-sorrel  was  of  old  called  "  Allelujah,"  or 
"  Cuckoo's  Meat,"  because,  says  the  old  herbalist, 
"when  it  springeth  forth,  the  Cuckoo  singeth 
most ;  at  which  time  also  Allelujahs  were  wont 
fco  be  sung  in  our  churches." 

Here  comes  the  first  Water  -  Lover  in  the 
dredger.  Once  I  tried  to  keep  a  colony  of  these 
Hydrophilidce.  They  lived  in  a  pickle-jar,  and 
there  were  twenty-two  of  them.  At  least,  after 
repeated  attempts  to  take  the  census  of  the  in- 
habitants of  that  jar,  twenty-two  was  the  number 
decided  upon,  it  being  somewhat  difficult  to  count 
beetles  that  are  in  constant  motion,  and  that  are 
identical  in  appearance  as  far  as  one  can  see. 
Each  beetle  was  three  eighths  of  an  inch  long,  one 
fourth  wide,  and  appeared  somewhat  hump-backed. 
The  upper,  convex  surface  was  black,  as  was  the 
under  surface  of  the  beetle,  but  the  latter  usually 
appeared  in  the  light  as  if  covered  with  liquid 
silver,  an  effect  produced  by  the  air  taken  under 
water  by  the  insects.  The  middle  and  hind  pairs 
of  legs  were  hairy,  and  all  three  pairs  were  armed 
with  double  spurs,  some  of  them  sufficiently  power- 
ful to  feel,  when  applied  to  one's  finger,  much  like 
a  pin's  prick. 

Inspired  by  the  gift  of  some  weeds  from  their 


34  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

native  brook,  the  colony  of  twenty-two  set  up 
housekeeping.  Unlike  other  beetles  in  neighbor- 
ing jars  of  water,  these  twenty-two  unanimously 
rejected  the  custom,  fashionable  among  many 
water-creatures,  of  breathing  through  the  abdo- 
men, and,  instead,  on  making  their  ascents  to 
the  surface  of  the  water,  put  up  their  heads  after 
the  manner  of  HydrophUidce  usually. 

Although  commonly  silent  these  beetles  were 
capable,  when  displeased,  or  when  frightened  by 
the  danger  of  capture,  of  giving  squeaks  that 
might  be  heard  across  an  ordinary  room.  These 
squeaks  sounded  somewhat  like  the  shrieks  of  a 
fly  when  imprisoned  in  a  spider's  web,  or  like  the 
croaks  of  a  feeble- voiced  toad.  They  were  par- 
tially quiet  when  living  by  themselves,  but  from 
a  jar^of  mixed  beetles  and  bugs  the  shrieks  were 
frequently  heard. 

Not  long  after  the  twenty-two  set  up  house- 
keeping, there  began  to  appear,  on  sticks  and 
leaves  in  the  jar,  white  egg-cases,  as  large  as 
beans,  or  three  eighths  of  an  inch  long,  and  a  little 
more  than  one  eighth  in  diameter,  woven  of  white 
silk  in  a  cylindrical  shape  and  having  sometimes 
a  thin  floating  strip  of  white  hanging  from  the 
top  of  the  egg-cases.  This  strip  was  sometimes 
about  five  eighths  of  an  inch  long,  and  occasionally 
when  an  egg  was  taken  out  of  the  water  the  strip 
would  fall  back  over  the  closed  opening.  One 
unacquainted  with  these  eggs  might  think  that 


MY   WATER-LOVERS. 


35 


only   the   wasteful  beetles    added    this  strip,  the 
more    economical    ones   refusing   to  expend    silk 


Eggs  of  Hydrophilidoe  ( Calif  ornian)  as  laid  in  my  bottle.     Eggs 
with  and  without  floating  strip. 

in  making  an  addition   that   was   apparently  of 
no  use. 

If  some  too-hasty  mortal,  wishing  to  perceive 


36  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

what  was  inside  of  such  an  egg,  opened  it  before 
the  proper  time,  his  curiosity  was  disappointed 
by  finding  only  some  little,  yellow,  oblong  specks. 
The  eggs  often  hatched  in  about  thirty  days  from 
the  time  of  laying.  There  issued  from  the  first 
egg  that  appeared  in  the  Hydropliilidce  bottle 
a  number  of  queer,  wriggling  larvae,  about  one 
eighth  of  an  inch  long. 

And  as  children  will  show  what  their  parents 
were,  so  these  lively  larvae  soon  let  out  the  secret 
that  the  black  beetles  had  not  by  any  means 
always  pursued  the  noiseless  tenor  of  their  way, 
satisfied  with  water-weeds  and  an  occasional  nib- 
ble at  a  departed  earth-worm.  The  family  traits 
showed  themselves,  and  the  Hydrophilidce  stood 
convicted  of  no  less  a  crime  than  murder.  No 
vegetable  diet  was  sufficient  for  the  appetites  of 
these  little  squirming  larvae,  that, 
with  their  branching  pincers  pro- 
jecting from  either  side  of  their 
heads,  wandered  around  the  surface 
Larvae  of  Cah-  o£  fae  water,  occasionally  meeting 

forma  Hydrophi- 
lidce. and  bunting  into  each  other,  inter- 
locking horns  like  a  couple  of  inimical  goats. 

Those  little  black  worms  that  have  a  habit, 
when  confined  in  bottles,  of  inching  up  the  sides 
of  the  glass  until  above  the  water,  had  great 
enemies  in  these  larvae.  These  worms  are  the 
larvae  of  a  variety  of  gnat,  and  their  pupae,  in- 
stead of  being  lively,  like  the  "  tumblers  "  of  or- 


MY    WATER-LOVERS.  37 

dinary  mosquitoes,  are  quiet,  black,  round,  and 
rather  Hard. 

No  sooner  did  one  such  worm  descend  from  his 
height  in  order  to  make  a  voyage  ~from  one  side 
of  the  bottle  to  the  other  than  his  path  was  beset 
with  danger.  The  horns  of  the  larvae  pointed 
toward  him,  and  it  became  a  question  whether  the 
worm  would  be  a  successful  mariner  or  whether 
the  dangers  of  the  deep  would  be  his  undoing.  If 
the  latter,  some  pair  of  tiny  nippers  closed  upon 
him,  and  the  successful  larva  raised  the  victim 
aloft.  But  one  larva  should  not  be  greedy,  and 
his  brethren  all  rushed  to  the  feast,  and  soon  the 
unfortunate  worm  was  claimed  by  a  number  of 
larvae,  and,  until  the  last  vestige  of  that  worm 
disappeared,  the  pulling  and  fighting  went  on. 
Often,  however,  the  voyage  ended  successfully, 
and  the  worm  would  inch  up  the  glass  on  the 
other  side,  leaving  the  larvae  wondering  where  he 
had  gone  to. 

But  murder  of  other  creatures  was  not  the  only 
crime  committed  in  that  jar.  Fratricide  pre- 
vailed, until,  at  last,  one  larva  remained,  the  sole 
ruler  of  the  bottle,  the  survivor  of  his  brethren, 
illustrating  in  himself  the  doctrine  of  the  Survival 
of  the  Fittest. 

The  Fittest  did  not  seem  to  be  a  very  bright 
infant.  Perhaps  he  was  more  deficient  in  intel- 
lect than  Hydrophilidce  children  usually  are,  but, 
at  times  in  his  career,  I  doubted  whether,  if  he 


38  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

had  been  living  in  a  brook  and  forced  to  seek  his 
meals  for  himself,  he  could  have  succeeded  in 
catching  anything.  I  was  his  devoted  slave  and 
feeder.  Everything  he  ate  I  put  into  his  mouth. 

It  was  not  that  the  Fittest  was  not  willing 
enough,  but  he  was  clumsy.  He  waddled,  with 
the  hinder  part  of  his  body  held  above,  much 
after  the  manner  of  a  misdirected  parasol,  while 
his  six  legs  paddled  through  the  water,  and  his 
horns  turned  stupidly  toward  any  prey  that  he 
dimly  saw.  He  had  caught  his  brethren  because 
they  were  as  stupid  as  he,  but  many  things  were 
quicker.  Mosquito  larvae  utterly  foiled  him,  dart- 
ing by  before  he  could  begin  to  turn  his  horns  in 
their  direction. 

The  black-headed  worm  had  a  trick  that  always 
completely  fooled  the  Fittest.  No  matter  how  vig- 
orously that  worm  had  been  wriggling,  if  it  came 
next  to  the  Fittest's  horns  it  remained  perfectly 
still ;  and  the  Fittest,  with  that  sublime  stupidity 
that  characterized  him,  would  pass  that  worm 
by  as  though  it  were  not  alive.  In  fact,  I  began 
to  think  that  the  only  thing  the  Fittest  did  per- 
ceive was  motion ;  shape  was  beyond  his  mental 
powers.  If  a  thing  wriggled,  he  thought  it  was 
food ;  if  not,  it  was  nothing  of  interest  to  him. 
The  black-headed  worm  was  infinitely  ahead  of 
the  Fittest  in  intellect. 

The  only  way  I  made  sure  that  my  captive 
had  any  food  was  to  take  a  straw  and  carefully 


MY    WATER-LOVERS.  39 

steer  one  of  the  black-headed  worms  to  the  harbor 
within  the  Fittest's  horns.  Then,  feeling  my 
straw  tickle,  the  worm  would  forget  its  caution 
and  wriggle  directly  before  the  Fittest's  little 
black  eyes,  and  then  he  saw  at  last  the  meaning 
of  my  efforts  and  was  soon  waving  his  victim  in 
triumph. 

After  one  of  these  enforced  meals,  the  Fittest 
descended  on  a  day  to  the  bottom  of  the  water  in 
the  tooth-powder  dish  where  he  resided  and  in- 
dulged in  a  season  of  meditation.  He  disdained 
to  eat,  and  only  occasionally  varied  his  medita- 
tions with  strolls  around  the  floor  of  his  home. 
These  strolls  exhibited  one  of  the  Fittest's  accom- 
plishments ;  he  could  travel  backward  as  well  as 
forward.  He  was  also  as  flexible  as  the  Japanese 
boy  one  sees  at  acrobatic  entertainments ;  he 
could  make  a  perfect  ring  of  himself.  Did  some 
invisible  speck  of  dirt  attach  itself  to  his  tail  dur- 
ing his  promenades,  all  the  Fittest  had  to  do 
was  to  bend  his  head  straight  back  over  his  back, 
take  hold  of  his  tail,  and,  straightway  removing 
the  trouble  with  his  pincers,  go  on  with  his  pil- 
grimage in  peace. 

Harmless  as  the  Fittest  was,  he  must  have  had 
some  terrors  for  a  minute  May -fly  larva  that 
dwelt  in  the  same  tooth-powder  dish.  The  little 
May-fly  developed  a  habit  of  giving  a  rapid  skip 
and  hopping  over  the  Fittest  whenever  they  met. 
But,  alas  for  the  Fittest,  not  even  a  May-fly- 


40  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

larva  need  fear  him  long.  He  drooped  ;  black- 
headed  worms  lost  all  charms  for  him  ;  he  trav- 
elled neither  backward  nor  forward  ;  grim  Death 
claimed  him  for  his  own,  and  a  prospective  beetle 
was  lost  to  the  world. 

The  Hydrophilidce  themselves  had  their  own 
troubles.  Opening  the  jar  one  day,  I  found  two 
of  the  beetles  carrying  a  yellow  burden  apiece. 
On  examination  the  burdens  proved  to  be  small 
yellow  leeches  that  had  calmly  appropriated  these 
two  beetles  and  forced  them  to  carry  them  around 
on  their  backs.  Securing  one  of  the  beetles  I  at- 
tacked its  burden,  but  it  was  only  after  much 
pulling  and  many  exertions  both  by  the  beetle 
and  myself  that  the  leech  finally  let  go  and  col- 
lapsed into  a  disgusted  heap  in  one  corner  of  the 
spoon.  During  the  struggle  a  number  of  baby 
leeches  had  detached  themselves  from  their  par- 
ent and  were  scattered  over  the  spoon.  On  put- 
ting the  leeches  into  water  the  children  gradually 
began  to  come  back  arid  cling  once  more  to  the 
larger  leech.  I  had  a  similar  struggle  with  the 
leech  attached  to  the  other  beetle,  but  the  young 
leeches  were  smaller  than  those  in  the  first  in- 
stance. Think  of  the  sorrows  of  a  poor  beetle  in 
a  pond,  with  no  friendly  hand  to  take  such  a  life- 
menacing  burden  from  his  back. 

After  diligent  search,  another  larva  was  fished 
from  the  pool  in  which  the  Hydrophilidcu  had 
their  former  residence,  and  was  brought  home  to 


MY    WATER-LOVERS.  41 

fill  the  place  of  the  Fittest.  This  the  larva  could 
more  than  do,  as  far  as  size  was  concerned,  being 
at  least  four  times  as  large  as  his  predecessor. 
The  surroundings  of  this  larva  were  more  favor- 
able than  those  of  the  Fittest  had  been,  inasmuch 
as  on  some  water-weeds  in  the  jar  of  the  new 
larva  were  a  number  of  the  small  crustaceans 
allied  to  beach-fleas  and  known  as  "  fresh-water- 
shrimps,"  which  were  to  serve  as  the  larva's  des- 
tined prey.  Their  often  slow  movements  were 
just  suited  to  the  larva's  mind.  There  was  no 
such  levity  about  them  as  about  a  black- headed 
worm.  The  larva  could  walk  carefully  along 
the  weed,  and,  coming  upon  a  water-shrimp  un- 
awares, grasp  it  with  those  pincers  of  his  and 
devour  his  prey.  He  would  elevate  the  shrimp, 
above  his  head  out  of  the  water,  and  in  some  mysT 
terious  manner  manage  to  keep  his  tail  out  of 
water  too,  in  order  to  breathe,  while  the  main 
part  of  his  body  was  under  water ;  and,  in  this 
position,  he  devoured  his  meal,  moulding  the 
water-shrimp  between  his  pincers  as  one  might  a 
bit  of  gum.  One  water-shrimp  that  I  timed  him 
on  was  eaten  in  seventeen  minutes.  His  appetite 
for  these  creatures  was  good.  In  a  little  time, 
after  eating  one,  this  Devourer  wanted  another. 
Perhaps  a  taste  of  this  congenial  food  might  have 
saved  the  life  of  the  Fittest.  Howbeit,  water- 
shrimps  are  not  all  of  life,  and  the  Devourer 
must  have  longed  for  something'  more.,  for  "  QIJQ 


42  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

morn  1  missed  him  on  the  accustomed  "  weed, 
nor  yet  upon  his  stick  nor  iu  the  jar  was  he. 
Had  he  fled  ?  The  mosquito-bar  over  the  mouth 
of  his  jar  showed  no  trace  of  his  passage.  Had 
he  departed  this  life  ?  Diligent  search  among  the 
debris  in  the  bottom  of  his  jar  failed  to  bring 
to  light  his  corpse.  The  fate  of  the  Devourer 
will  ever  remain  a  mystery.  Sufficient  was  it  to 
know  that  this  second  attempt  at  raising  beetle 
was  a  failure.  There  was,  however,  a  rumor  of  the 
assassination  of  the  Devourer  by  water-shrimps. 

A  great  many  books  of  reference  speak  of  the 
HydropMlidcB  as  entirely  herbivorous  when  ma- 
ture beetles.  Dead  flesh,  however,  hath  charms 
for  some  of  these  reputedly  strict  vegetarians.  I 
have  seen  one  of  these  Hydrophttidce  so  interested 
in  a  dead  earth-worm  that  when  his  supply  of  air 
became  exhausted  he  would  rush  to  the  top  of  the 
bottle,  poke  up  his  head,  rush  down  again  and  go 
straight  to  the  worm  and  recommence  the  appar- 
ent chewing  off  of  little  pieces  of  flesh.  How- 
ever, the  HydropJiilidce  get  along  very  well  when 
shut  up  in  a  bottle  with  nothing  but  weeds,  but 
I  believe  that  when  at  home  in  their  native  pools 
they  sometimes  act  as  scavengers,  not  only  in  the 
matter  of  decaying  leaves  but  in  that  of  dead  flesh 
as  well. 

Professor  Karl  Semper,  of  the  University  of 
Wiirzburg,  in  speaking  of  the  food  of  animals, 
mentions  the  European  pond-snail,  Lymncea  stag- 


•J/F    WATER-LOVERS,  43 

nalis,  as  often  turning  from  its  plant-eating  to  prey 
upon  little  water-tritons,  attacking  quite  healthy 
specimens,  overcoming  and  devouring  them.  Per- 
haps it  may  have  been  some  such  rebound  from 
the  common  habit  of  life  that  influenced  the 
beetle  I  observed  to  illustrate  Professor  Semper's 
assertion  that  "  many  polyphagous  species  are 
found  in  genera  which  otherwise  contain  none  but 
monophagous  Carnivora  or  Herbivora." 

The  Water-Lovers  go  armed.  At  least  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  they  do.  Concealed  weap- 
ons are  not  forbidden  in  Water-Land.  Safely 
hidden  underneath  the  body  of  one  of  these  Hy- 
dropliilidce,  at  the  end  of  the  sternum,  is  a  very 
short,  somewhat  sharp,  black  "  pin,"  ready,  it 
might  seem,  to  be  stuck  into  the  unfortunate  crea- 
ture that  incurs  this  beetle's  wrath.  An  experi- 
enced youth  whom  I  once  discovered,  or,  rather, 
who  discovered  me,  during  my  dredging  -  hours, 
announced  to  me  that  the  Hydrophilidce,  or  "  toe 
pinchers,"  as  he  called  them,  "  bit." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Got  them  on  me  when  I  went  in  swimming," 
responded  the  wise  youngster.  Perhaps  he  had 
felt  the  thrust  of  this  same  black  "pin."  But 
lads'  eyes  are  not  sometimes  as  bright  as  they 
ought  to  be,  and  I  have  quite  a  suspicion  that 
the  Water-Lover  and  the  Water-Tiger  beetles  are 
confounded  in  the  minds  of  many  boys,  since  in 
this  brook  the  most  common  varieties  of  these  two 


44  UP  AND   DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

families  are  much  the  same  size,  and  to  an  un- 
practised eye  are  similar  in  appearance  to  each 
other.  Of  course,  the  bug-hunters,  who  know  the 
two  families,  can  distinguish  them  at  once. 

It  is  that  way  often  in  the  insect  world.  The 
hunter  after  "  bugs  "  sees  at  first  the  likenesses 
but  not  the  differences.  But  when,  as  the  reward 
of  long  and  close  looking,  the  latter  become  plain, 
the  hunter  wonders  at  not  having  seen  them  be- 
fore. There  is  nothing  like  looking  to  sharpen 
the  eyes,  and  the  earlier  one  goes  about  it  the 
more  one  will  see. 

Here  come  some  more  pond-snails  from  their 
watery  homes.  Let  them  swim  while  they  may, 
for  when  these  pools  shall  shortly  dry  up  in  the 
summer-time  heat,  then  will  the  patient  pond- 
snails,  unable  to  take  up  their  shells  and  fly  away, 
do  the  next  best  thing,  and,  with  becoming  forti- 
tude, burrow  into  the  damp  ground,  hoping  thereby 
to  preserve  their  lives  until  water  shall  come  again. 
Alas,  rain  will  be  months  away. 

Here,  likewise,  come  up  in  the  dredger  some 
dark,  perhaps  two-inches-long  leeches.  There  are 
plenty  of  them  often  in  the  mud  at  the  sides  of 
the  stream.  One  can  find  numbers  of  leeches  in 
autumn  by  taking  a  shovelful  of  mud  from  the 
pool's  edge.  Still,  leeches  are  not  delightful 
pets,  and  these  may  slip  back  in  the  pool. 

Let  us  go  home,  for  dredging  is  sometimes 
wearisome  work  on  account  of  the  strength  it  re« 


MY  WATER-LOVERS.  45 

quires  ;  but  notice,  as  we  go,  how  the  tops  of  the 
green  water-weeds  are  decorated  with  the  white 
webs  of  these  Hydrophttidce.  It  is  strange  that, 
considering  the  number  of  eggs,  the  dredger  does 
not  more  often  catch  the  larvae,  but  any  one  who 
has  kept  such  creatures  knows  that  they  are  very 
clever  at  concealing  themselves.  These  egg- webs 
are  clear  above  the  water.  If  one  did  not  know 
better  one  might  pass  them  by  as  the  webs  of  so 
many  spiders.  M.  Figuier  gives  the  time  of  the 
spinning  of  the  egg-cases  of  the  European  Hydro- 
philidte  as  April.  Here  the  time  is  earlier,  for 
one  of  my  beetles  celebrated  St.  Patrick's  Day, 
March  17th,  by  spinning  an  egg-case.  This  is  the 
earliest  egg  of  these  beetles  that  I  have  ever  seen, 
although  March  19th  I  found  three  in  the  brook, 
and  one  looked  as  though  it  might  have  been  laid 
several  days  before.  During  the  last  ten  days  in 
March  one  can  find  many  egg-webs  on  the  reedy 
grass  that  dips  into  the  water. 

These  HydrophilidcB  do  not  always  place  the 
eggs  above  the  surface  of  the  water,  but,  when 
these  beetles  are  in  jars,  often  put  the  webs  where 
they  are  covered,  and  there  is  no  air-tube  rising 
from  each  egg  to  the  air,  as  in  the  egg-cases  of  the 
large  European  beetles.  If  one  drives  away  a 
beetle  from  her  work  before  the  case  is  closed  one 
may  look  into  the  dainty  white  receptacle  and  see 
the  bright-yellow  egg-mass.  A  week  afterward7 
if  the  beetle  did  not  come  back  to  finish  her  egg- 


46  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

case,  one  may  look  in  and  see  that  the  egg-mass 
lias  separated  into  several  oval  eggs. 

How  full  the  world  is  of  insect-life.  Most  of 
us  have  no  idea  of  the  number  of  our  neighbors. 
It  seems  sometimes  to  the  bug-hunter  as  though 
there  would  be  but  very  few  vacant  rooms  to  rent 
in  Nature's  house.  And  yet  the  insects  keep  com- 
ing till  even  the  flies  take  to  the  water.  One  can 
see  a  multitude  of  little  flies  sitting  upon  the  sur- 
face of  this  pool  sometimes.  I  do  not  know  how 
many  insects  there  are  on  an  average  to  each 
plant  in  this  country,  but  an  English  entomolo- 
gist reckons  that  on  an  average  there  are  six  kinds 
to  a  plant  in  his  country.  Harris  thinks  that 
probably  our  average  is  less.  Yet  the  hunter  can 
see  that  there  is  hardly  a  crack  or  cranny  in  the 
bark  of  these  trees  but  some  insect  has  found  it 
out. 

Go  by  those  willows  in  May  and  you  will  see 
leaves  curiously  connected,  two  or  three  fastened 
together  near  the  tips.  Tear  such  leaves  apart, 
and  lo,  there  is  within  a  tiny  gray  weevil  with 
pointed  snout.  Sometimes  two  or  three  of  the 
weevils  are  in  the  same  connected  leaves.  On 
those  willows,  too,  in  May,  one  may  find  numer- 
ous caterpillars,  and  the  queer  larvae  of  what  I 
suppose  to  be  saw-flies,  since,  when  touched,  each 
larva  has  that  strange  habit,  peculiar  to  saw-fly 
infants,  of  assuming  curious  attitudes,  standing 
on  the  fore  part  of  the  body,  the  hinder  part  be- 


MY   WATER-LOVERS.  47 

ing  held  out  in  the  air  with  the  stiffness  of  a 
Sphinx  caterpillar,  excepting  that  the  Sphinx 
holds  out  its  head  instead  of  its  hinder  portion. 
Sometimes  one  of  these  saw-fly  larvae  curls  its 
tail  up,  instead,  much  as  a  cat  might  curl  up  hers. 
This  attitude  is  more  striking  than  the  other,  if 
anything,  for  it  looks  almost  unnatural  to  see  the 
larva  so  twisted  on  the  leaf.  The  larvae  hold  on, 
during  all  their  posings,  by  their  fore  feet.  The 
color  of  the  creatures  is  grayish  on  top,  with  ten 
double  yellow  marks  on  each  side. 

What  a  queer  variety  there  is  in  insects  !  The 
more  one  sees  of  them  the  more  one  wonders  at 
the  marvellous  diversity  displayed  in  their  appear- 
ance and  organization.  Come  here  next  month, 
at  the  end  of  April,  and,  as  you  painfully  pick 
out  the  gradually  fattening  larvae  of  Hydrophili* 
dee,  there  will  come  a  middle-sized,  brilliant  red 
dragon-fly  whizzing  almost  into  your  very  face. 
You  may  now  find  the  larvae  of  these  insects, 
looking  much  like  big  spiders.  A  little  boy  who 
once  saw  one  of  them  announced  that  it  was  a 
"  grasshopper,"  but  I  think  that  the  resemblance 
to  a  hairy  spider  is  much  more  striking,  the  main 
difference,  as  one  glances  at  the  larva,  being  that 
a  real  spider  has  two  more  legs  than  this  one. 
These  Iarva3,  when  disturbed,  dig  violently  with 
their  fore  feet  as  if  they  wished  to  cover  them- 
selves with  mud.  However  the  larvae  are  easily 
kept  if  fed  with  earth-worms,  and  I  have  had  one 


48  UP  AND  DOWN  THE   BROOKS. 

transform  into  a  red  dragon-fly  as  early  as  March 
llth.    Unfortunately  this  red 
color  is    evanescent    after 
death,  much  more  so  than  the 
blue  of  the  larger  dragon-flies. 
The   cast-off,    spidery  skins 
Red  Dragon-fly  larva,     retain  their  shape,  and  around 
the  opening  that  the  dragon- 
fly leaves  in  the  back  011  coming  out  are  white 
threads,  looking   as  though    they  were  the  bast- 
ings that  held  the  dress  together.     "  Wasserjung- 
fern,"  "  Virgins  of  the  water,"  say  the  Germans 
when   they   speak  of   the  dragon-flies.     "  Snake- 
stanger,"  or  "  snake-stang,"  is  an  old  name  sug- 
gested perhaps,  as  Dyer  thinks,  by  the  belief  that 
the  bite  of  the  dragon-fly  was  as  venomous  as  that 
of  a  snake. 

I  do  not  know  why  the  dragon-fly  should  have 
so  bad  a  reputation.  The  larvae  are  certainly 
hideous  enough  to  frighten  people,  but  it  hardly 
seems  as  if  the  red,  blue,  or  green  dragon-flies 
need  be  much  more  frightful  than  so  many  bril- 
liant humming-birds.  I  do  not  know  what 
amount  of  horror  might  arise  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  now  view  the  dragon-fly  with  supersti- 
tious fear  did  they  know  that  the  insect  looks  at 
them  through  compound  eyes  the  facets  of  which 
are  six-sided. 

An  army  of  teasels  have  marched  down  the  hill 
in  one  place  almost  to  the  borders  of  this  brook. 


MY    WATER-LOVERS.  49 

Now  in  March,  when,  amid  the  grass  of  spring, 
the  dry,  gray  teasel  stalks  lie  broken  off  or  stand 
toppling  to  their  fall,  their  brittle,  hollow  stems 
are  still  useful  to  the  minor  creatures.  In  many 
of  the  gray  towers  of  the  stalks  abide  spiders,  clad 
in  red  and  black,  or  the  latter  color  only,  sitting 
in  grimness,  like  barons  in  the  mediaeval  towers 
of  yore,  and  intent  on  the  same  business  that 
those  gentlemen  followed,  the  murdering  of  un- 
wary travellers.  Very  frequently  one  will  find  a 
lady-bug  with  the  spider,  usually  a  defunct  lady- 
bug,  one  of  the  kind  that  is  red  with  no  black 
dots  on  its  back.  Others  there  are  with  thirteen 
spots,  and  once  I  cut  into  a  teasel  tower  contain- 
ing a  company  of  ants.  If  you  look  under  the 
leaves  of  the  fresh  teasels  which  are  springing 
up  at  the  feet  of  the  old  ones,  you  may  find  per- 
chance a  snail,  the  hermit  of  this  the  Mediaeval 
Age  of  Teasel  Land. 

Not  always  are  the  teasels  friends  of  the  insect 
tribe,  however.  These  broad -based  leaves  form 
little  hollows  in  which  the  showers  deposit  water 
in  which  unwary  creatures  are  sometimes  drowned. 

Did  you  ever  listen  to  the  music  that  a  crowd 
of  dry  teasel  stems  makes  when  moved  by  the 
wind  ?  The  sound  is  as  musical  as  that  one  makes 
by  blowing  through  a  comb.  Perhaps  the  spiders 
find  such  music  lulling  as  the  wind  rocks  them  to 
sleep  in  the  teasel  towers. 

Hordes  of  small  caterpillars  eat  the  teasel  leaves 


50  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

in  June,  and  as  one  goes  toward,  home  carrying  a 
bunch  of  leaves  for  such  creatures,  a  white  billy- 
goat  near  the  path  stretches  out  his  head  and 
mutely  begs  for  a  teasel  leaf  as  a  variation  from 
his  fare  of  dry  grass.  He  munches  the  prickly 
morsel  with  satisfaction.  Who  had  supposed  that 
the  teasels,  were  the  friends  of  so  many  creatures  ? 

But  when  the  teasels  bloom,  myriads  of  butter- 
flies haunt  the  white  -  spotted  heads.  Here  one 
will  find  little  clouds  of  butterflies  springing  up 
before  one  while  walking,  and,  if  you  look  into 
the  clouds,  you  may  see  what  the  boys  call  the 
Bull's-eye  butterfly,  Junonia,  with  its  wings 
spotted  with  eyes  like  a  peacock's.  Here  flutter 
blue  or  brown  smaller  ones,  the  representatives 
of  the  Lyccenidce,  and  beside  this  stream  one 
day  I  found  two  downy,  white  moths,  Arctia, 
with  black  spots  on  their  wings,  and  abdomens 
marked  on  top  with  six  black  spots  and  a  patch 
of  orange. 

In  the  summer  time,  when  many  of  these  pools 
are  dry,  one  may  walk  their  beds  and  find  the 
butterflies  resting  and  sunning  themselves  in  spots 
where,  a  few  months  before,  polliwogs  bobbed 
up  and  down  and  pond-snails  clung  surrounded 
by  dancing  beetles.  "  Freyja's  hens,"  the  old 
Icelanders  called  the  butterflies.  " Freyjuhoena" 
Since  Freyja  was  the  Norse  goddess  of  love,  it  is 
quite  unlikely  that  a  being  of  her  sort  would 
keep  such  good-for-nothing  hens,  the  goddess 


MY   WATER-LOVERS.  51 

being  too  much  taken  up  with  sentimental  affairs 
to  be  much  interested  in  poultry  raising.  All 
lovers  who  had  been  faithful  unto  death  were 
afterward  gathered  in  Freyja's  halls,  and,  though 
the  cynical  might  say  that  there  probably  would 
not  be  much  of  a  crowd,  yet  even  a  small  as- 
sembly of  such  ghosts  would  no  doubt  drive  all 
thoughts  of  a  practical  nature  from  the  poor  god- 
dess' mind.  However,  Freyja's  hens  are  as  use- 
ful as  some  real  hens  that  I  have  had  the  pleasure 
of  being  acquainted  with. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WATER-BOATMEN. 

T  faith,  you  are  too  angry." 

Taming  of  the  Shrew. 


Notonecta  glauca. 

BUGS  have  tempers.  I  had  as  lief  be  a  hornet 
as  a  water -boatman.  The  excitable  disposition 
is  just  about  the  same.  Buzz,  jump,  hop,  defiance 
in  every  motion.  One  day,  in  my  absence,  a  way- 
ward cat  thought  to  lie  down  to  calm  repose  upon 
the  steps  where  an  open  bottle  of  bugs  stood. 
But  alas  for  that  cat's  calculations !  Either  pussy 
had  a  day-mare  during  her  slumbers,  or  else  she 
sat  down  wrong,  for  thump !  went  the  bottle,  and 
the  steps  were  deluged  with  a  shower  of  "  bugs  " 
of  all  sizes  and  descriptions. 


WATER-BOATMEN.  53 

"  Oh,  how  they  hopped  !  "  said  the  one  who  ran 
to  the  rescue,  in  relating  afterwards  the  mis-ad- 
venture. "  They  acted  as  if  they  hated  me." 

And  if,  as  I  think  may  have  been,  the  Water- 
boatmen  were  among  the  suddenly-landed  ubugs," 
I  have  no  doubt  that  they  expressed  their  defi- 
ance in  a  series  of  hops  that  plainly  told  that 
they  had  "  let  their  angry  passions  rise."  Woe 
to  the  person  that  receives  a  prick  from  the  pro- 
boscis of  some  of  these  creatures,  for  that  person 
shall  suffer  as  though  stung  by  a  wasp. 

On  a  sunshiny  day  there  is  great  excitement  in 
the  Water-boatman  jar.  Continued  little  click- 
ings  may  be  heard,  made  by  the  hitting  of  the 
bugs'  heads  against  the  sides  of  the  glass  jar. 
The  surface  of  the  water  is  surrounded  with  boat- 
men that  have  turned  right-side  up  and  are  pre- 
paring their  wings  for  flight.  Every  few  minutes 
one  of  them  soars  upward,  only  to  have  his  as- 
pirations shocked  by  hitting  against  the  mosquito- 
bar  that  covers  the  top  of  the  bottle,  and  by  being 
knocked  back  into  the  water,  there  either  to  try 
it  over  again  or  to  disappear  beneath  the  surface, 
where  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  cool  waves  quench 
Notonecta's  anger.  At  such  times  as  this  even 
calm  Ranatra's  disposition  was  corrupted  by  the 
evil  world  about  him,  and  he  elevated  his  head, 
and  clawed  at  the  glass  above,  as  if  he  too  would 
crawl  out.  'Shall  I  set  them  all  at  liberty  ?  How 
then  shall  I  learn  their  habits  ?  Do  they  then 


54  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

languish  day  by  day,  and  pine  in  sorrow  during 
their  imprisonment  ?  Nay,  for  does  not  Don 
Quixote  say,  "  Sir,  melancholy  was  not  made  for 
beasts  but  for  men  "  ?  These  very  boatmen  that 
now  are  so  zealous  for  liberty  will,  by  and  by 
when  the  sun  has  gone  behind  that  tree,  sink 
down  and  solace  these  their  woes  by  eating  water- 
shrimps  and  earth-worms,  and  the  jar-world  will 
be  calm  once  more.  How  many  griefs  doth 
eating  assuage,  not  only  in  the  bug,  but  in  the 
human. 

All  people  do  not  admire  the  boatmen.  Well 
do  I  remember  the  frankness  with  which  one 
urchin  (who  had  his  head  bound  up  with  a  rag 
on  account  of  an  attack  of  poison-oak,  and  who 
found  me  gathering  Notonectidce)  exclaimed.  "  If 
I  was  collectin'  curiosities,  I  'd  get  something 
worth  lookin'  at !  " 

His  charming  directness  of  speech  was  equalled 
on  another  occasion  that  lingers  in  my  memory 
by  that  of  an  old  woman,  whom  I  take  to  have 
been  a  wanderer  from  Erin's  Isle  staking  out  her 
goat,  and  who,  looking  upon  me  as  I  met  her  in 
the  path,  demanded  what  were  the  contents  of  my 
pail.  Ignoring  the  suddenness  of  our  introduction 
to  one  another,  I  brought  up  from  the  depths 
some  of  my  beetles. 

"  Now,"  quoth  the  old  woman,  after  a  look  at 
the  uncanny  beings,  "  how  much  nicer  it  would  be 
for  you  to  get  fish  than  those  things.  There  are 


WA  TER-BOA  TMEN. 


55 


plenty  of  fish  in  the  brook,  and  anybody  can  have 
them,"  and  she  looked  at  me  with  a  benevo- 
lently generous  air,  which,  alas  !  was  quite  thrown 
away. 

The  eggs  of  the  water-boatman  I  have  found  in 
March  and  July  on  sticks  in  my  jar.  These  eggs 
are  oval,  white,  and  about  one 
sixteenth  of  an  inch  long. 
They  are  sometimes  in  short 
rows,  but  often  are  scattered 
irregularly  over  the  sticks. 

One  day  I  noticed  on  Ra- 
natra's  back  an  oval,  white 
thing,  and  wondered  what  had 
befallen  him.  I  fished  him 
out  and  looked,  and  lo !  it 
was  an  egg  laid  on  his  back 
by  some  much-deceived  water- 
boatman  that  had  taken  him 
for  a  stick.  Another  egg 
adorned  one  of  his  legs.  Another  time  I  found 
Ranatra  with  three  boatman  eggs  on  one  leg,  two 
on  the  leg  opposite,  and  an  old  one  on  his  back. 
Most  likely  these  were  the  eggs  of  a  lady  boat- 
man that  was  afterwards  numbered  among  Rana- 
tra's  victims.  How  touching  a  spectacle  to  see 
the  mother  confiding  to  her  murderer  the  future 
welfare  of  her  children. 

The  infant  water-boatman  of  the  age  of  one 
or  two  days  is  very  pretty  and  cunning,  looking 


Egg-s  of  Water-boatman 
in  my  bottle. 


56  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

just  like  his  ma,  only  very,  very  small.  It  is  a 
fact  well  known  to  those  acquainted  with  the 
Notonectidce  that  there  exist  among  the  Water- 
boatmen  different  opinions  as  to  the  proper 
method  of  swimming.  In  the  characteristic  di- 
vision, Notonecta,  all  the  bugs  consider  it  emi- 
nently proper  to  turn  wrong  side  up,  and  swim 
in  that  humiliating  posture  ;  while  the  other  divi- 
sion, known  as  Corixa,  consider  such  actions  un- 
seemly and  swim  right  side  up  with  great  pro- 
priety. Even  from  the  egg  these  different  modes 
of  swimming  are  observed.  It  is  in  the  blood, 
like  any  other  family  feud.  Ranatra  liked  Corixa 
better  for  eating,  a  fact  that  did  him  credit. 

No  sudden  start  ever  makes  Notonecta  let  go 
its  hold  on  its  prey.  Any  unexpected  jostle  only 
sends  the  bug  darting  off,  upside  down,  holding 
its  prey  firmly  in  its  arms,  as  dreadful  an  embrace 
as  a  bear's  hug.  The  two  oars  bear  up  the  bug 
while  it  enjoys  its  meal.  Occasionally  Notonecta 
shifts  its  prey,  and  thrusts  the  pointed  javelin  of 
a  beak  into  another  place.  The  second  and  third 
joints  of  Notonecta's  oars  are  the  most  feathered 
ones,  the  hairs  growing  longer  and  thicker  toward 
the  end  of  the  third  joint,  just  as  the  blade  of  an 
oar  becomes  wider.  Some  Boatmen  have  a  queer 
way  of  standing  on  the  middle  pair  of  legs,  like  a 
bug  on  stilts,  the  oars  being  spread  in  the  water, 
and  the  short,  first  pair  of  legs  clapping  together. 

Wood  tells  us  that  the  eggs  of  a  Mexican  kind 


WATER-BOATMEN.  57 

of  Water  -  boatman,  of  the  variety  Corixa,  are 
eaten  by  the  Mexicans  under  the  name  of  "haou- 
tle."  The  eggs  are  collected  by  sinking  bundles 
of  reeds  in  the  water,  and  the  Corixa  lays  its  eggs 
on  such  bundles  which  are  afterwards  scraped  and 
the  eggs  are  made  into  cakes.  It  is  well  for  the 
Mexicans  that  the  Boatmen  do  not  know  of  this 
performance.  The  Bohemians  are  said  on  the 
evening  of  all  festival  days  to  give  some  garlic 
to  the  house-dog,  the  cock,  and  the  gander,  it  be- 
ing thought  that  such  food  will  make  the  three 
very  brave.  But  I  think  the  Boatmen  would  need 
no  food  to  rouse  the  heroic  spirit  within  them. 
If  they  heard  of  this  Mexican  performance,  the 
next  thing  would  be  a  pitched  battle  between  the 
Boatmen  and  the  supplanters  of  the  Aztecs,  and  I 
fear  the  latter  would  hardly  come  off  victorious. 
"Upon  experience  all  these  bugs  grow  familiar 
and  easy  to  us,"  says  L'Estrange.  Perhaps  they 
do.  But  I  should  be  afraid  to  count  too  much  on 
my  familiarity  with  the  Boatmen. 

De  Geer  supposed  that  the  Water  -  boatman 
drops  some  poison  into  its  bite,  since  insects  die 
so  soon  after  being  pierced.  And  Wood  likens 
the  dull,  aching  pain  that  follows  the  smart  prick 
of  the  proboscis  of  Corixa  to  the  sting  of  a  wasp 
after  the  first  sharpness  of  that  has  passed.  I 
cannot  myself  state  how  it  feels,  for  I  am  thank- 
ful to  say  that,  in  all  my  acquaintance  with  these 
bugs,  I  have  escaped  their  proboscides.  I  ana 


58  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

quite  sure,  though,  that  they  would  have  been 
most  happy  to  have  afforded  me  the  sensation  of 
being  penetrated  by  their  beaks,  and  their  only 
regret  in  that  case  would  have  been  that  they 
could  not  at  the  same  time  eject  a  bit  of  the  acqua 
tofana  of  Perugia  into  my  veins. 


CHAPTER  V. 

WATER-TIGERS. 

"  Let 's  talk  of  graves,  of  worms,  and  epitaphs  " 

Richard  II. 

IN  April  one  may  find  in  this  brook  the  nearly 
full-grown  Iarva3  of   those  beetles  known  as  the 
Water  -  tigers,    or    Dytiscidm.       These 
larvae    are    ferocious    creatures,    as   the 
children  of  water -tigers  well  might  be. 
They  are  strong  and  slender,  furnished  at 
one  end  of  the  body  with  a 
flat  head  marked  with  six 
ocelli   and   armed  with    a 
pair   of    sharp    jaws    like 

Larva  of  Dytiscus  marginalis.  Scissors,    and   at    the   other 

end  by  two  breathing  gills 

which  they  keep  uppermost  as  they  dart  head 
downward  through  the  water.  Armed  with  his 
pair  of  shears,  the  gray-yellowish,  two-inch-long 
larva  goes  forth  to  prune  the  animal  world.  Is 
that  a  polliwog?  Let  us  snip  off  his  tail.  It  is 
too  long.  Or,  if  that  cannot  be  accomplished,  let 
us  at  least  hold  on  to  the  polliwog  till  we  have 
sucked  him  dry  of  juice. 


60  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  for  two  of  these 
water-tiger  larvae  to  live  together  in  the  same 
bottle.  A  battle  will  sooner  or  later  occur  and 
one  will  be  killed.  The  indiscriminate  slaughter 
of  victims  indulged  in  by  these  larvae  soon  im- 
parts to  an  uncared-for  jar  an  "  ancient  and  fish- 
like  smell,"  since  the  larvae  do  not  devour  their 
victims  whole,  but  suck  out  the  juice  and  then 
drop  the  bodies  on  the  bottom  of  the  jar.  A 
keeper  of  these  larvae  will  find  himself  called  on 
often  to  perform  the  office  of  undertaker. 

But  the  sickle-jaws  do  not  always  prove  all-pow- 
erful. There  are  individuals  that  refuse  to  be 
pruned  by  such  a  pair  of  shears.  A  big  dragon- 
fly larva  is  a  match  for  the  shears-bearer.  I  left 
one  of  the  Dytiscidce  larvae  once  in  a  bottle  of 
large  dragon-fly  larvae,  and  when  I  came  back 
the  shears-bearer  was  himself  divided  into  two 
parts.  The  dragon-flies  had  conquered. 

Like  some  of  the  dragon-fly  larvae  when  they 
are  about  to  enter  upon  the  struggle  of  coming 
out  with  wings,  some  of  these  beetle-larvae  think 
that  "  the  melancholy  days  have  come  "  when  the 
time  approaches  for  leaving  the  water  and  bur- 
rowing in  the  ground  for  the  pupa-sleep  before  be- 
coming beetles.  One  of  my  beetle-larvae,  having 
evidently  attained  its  full  size,  seemed  to  be  in- 
capable of  crawling  out  of  the  water.  Hoping  to 
save  him  I  assisted  him  out  on  a  pot  of  earth,  and 
waited  to  see  him  bury  himself.  But  evidently 


WATER-TIGERS.  61 

the  dark  and  narrow  tomb  had  no  attractions  for 
him.  He  refused  to  act  as  his  own  sexton,  so  I 
returned  him  to  the  water,  where,  in  spite  of  the 
earth,  with  which  he  was  furnished  a  few  days 
after,  and  which  he  manipulated  with  his  jaws, 
seeming  to  have  a  sort  of  cobwebby  substance  be- 
tween them,  he  at  last  apparently  drowned.  Tak- 
ing him  out,  I  placed  him  on  the  earth  again,  but 
he  was  too  far  gone  to  do  more  than  faintly  wrig- 
gle his  feet  and  tail,  perchance,  in  token  of  adieu, 
for  he  died  in  truth  this  time  and  never  had  the 
pleasure  of  burying  himself.  Ah,  well !  "  The 
good  die  young." 

The  full-grown,  perfect  beetles  that  come  from 
these  larvse  have  a  habit,  when  sitting  still,  of 
holding  their  long  oar-like  hind-legs  curved  up 
over  their  backs,  instead  of  letting  them  lie 
stretched  out  in  the  water,  the  way  the  water-boat- 
men do  with  their  oars.  Another  peculiarity  of 
the  DytisddcB  is  their  bubbles.  You  should  see  a 
dozen  dark-brown  beetles,  some  of  them  perhaps 
an  inch  long,  standing  on  their  heads  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  jar  of  water,  each  beetle  having  at  its 
posterior  end  a  shining  round  bubble  of  air.  Oc- 
casionally, from  some  collision  or  sudden  calam- 
ity, one  of  the  beetles  looses  his  bubble.  Up  the 
round  thing  flies  through  the  water  to  the  surface, 
and  the  bubble-less  beetle  is  seldom  long  in  rush- 
ing up  to  protrude  the  end  of  his  body  and  grasp 
another  round  bubble  with  which  he  comes  rush- 


62  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

ing  triumphantly  back  to  his  brethren.  Even  if, 
in  the  darkness  of  some  obscure  corner  of  the  jar, 
the  Dytiscidce  cannot  be  seen,  yet  one  can  catch 
the  shine  of  their  bubbles  and  know  where  the 
beetles  are.  The  Dytiscidce  are  of  a  very  retir- 
ing disposition  as  long  as  they  think  that  there  is 
any  one  around.  They  are  capable  of  concealing 
themselves  pretty  well.  There  may  be  a  dozen  of 
these  beetles  in  a  jar,  and  if  there  are  only  mud 
and  weeds  enough  at  the  bottom,  the  creatures, 
when  alarmed,  will  conceal  themselves  so  that  one 
would  not  know  that  there  was  a  beetle  in  the 
water.  The  dark  color  of  the  beetles  is  easily 
concealed  by  its  likeness  to  earth  color,  and,  un- 
less their  bubbles  betray  them,  the  Dytiscidce 
are  safe. 

There  is  a  look  of  positive  intelligence  to  many 
of  these  beetles.  They  are  the  Yankees  of  Water 
Land,  in  the  matter  of  brains,  though  charity  for- 
bid that  I  should  liken  them  in  the  matter  of  dis- 
positions. When  one  of  these  beetles  manages  to 
slip  out  of  his  jar  and  dry  himself  in  the  warm 
sun,  he  will  look  at  you  in  a  knowing  way  as  you 
go  to  catch  him,  and  then,  spreading  his  wings, 
will  fly  across  the  yard  to  some  tree.  It  would 
never  do  to  put  such  innocent-hearted  beetles  as 
the  Hydrophilidce  in  with  the  Water-tigers,  unless 
one  wished  to  see  a  battle  in  which  the  latter 
would  come  off  victorious,  the  flesh-eater  triumph- 
ing over  the  vegetable-eater. 


WATER-TIGERS.  63 

The  larvae  of  the  Hydrophilidoe  and  those  of 
the  Water-tigers  are  much  alike,  when  both  are 
half -grown,  and  the  would-be  "  bug-sharp  "  will 
suffer  many  things  and  be  often  distracted  by  re- 
semblances while  learning  to  distinguish  the  one 
from  the  other.  At  times  the  indignant  stu- 
dent will  be  ready  to  rashly  affirm  that  the  only 
way  of  telling  the  two  apart  is  to  wait  till  they 
transform  to  beetles,  and  if  a  HydropJiilidce 
beetle  comes  forth,  then  the  larva  was  of  that 
family,  and  vice  versa.  And  as,  under  the  care  of 
an  amateur,  most  of  the  larvae  die  before  reaching 
maturity,  any  one  can  see  that  this  experimental 
method  of  discovering  the  difference  between  the 
larvae  is  not  very  satisfactory.  One  may  know 
them  apart,  however,  by  the  more  clumsy  form 
of  the  HydropJiilidce  larvae,  and  by  their  dark, 
thick-looking  skin  and  toothed  mandibles.  Ver 

o 

assassin,  the  people  of  Europe  call  the  larva  of 
their  Hydrophilus  piceus,  and  certainly  no  one 
could  tell  the  larvae  of  the  two  families  apart  by 
reference  to  ferocity,  for,  if  one  family  are  assas- 
sins, so  are  the  other. 

In  mid -April,  as  one  drags  the  Water -tiger 
larvae  from  their  hidden  nooks  under  the  grass 
that  dips  into  the  stream,  a  flash  of  vivid  yellow 
comes  by,  and  one  admiringly  watches  the  first 
Colias  butterfly  of  the  season  flit  on  black-bor- 
dered wings  over  the  fields  that  are  yellow  as 
itself  with  the  hosts  of  buttercups  and  the  fewer 


64  UP  AND   DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

but  more  brilliant  blossoms  of  the  California 
poppies.  By  the  way  there  is  a  slight  difference 
between  the  California  Colias  butterfly,  as  I  have 
examined  it,  and  the  Eastern  variety  C.  Philo- 
dice,  as  described  by  Harris,  a  difference  that  is 
interesting  to  those  only  who  are  concerned  with 
the  minutiae  of  insect  life.  The  difference  is  to 
be  found  on  the  under  side  of  the  hind  wings, 
where  the  small  secondary  spot  on  each  wing  is 
not  white,  as  in  the  Eastern  variety,  but  rust- 
colored.  Moreover  this  little  spot  is  outside  of 
the  rust-colored  ring  that  surrounds  the  larger 
white  spot,  instead  of  both  spots  being  joined  to- 
gether and  both  surrounded  by  the  rust-colored 
ring.  Other  mid- April  visitors  to  the  brook  are 
little  Agrion  dragon-flies,  and  one  may  perhaps 
see  the  first  of  the  large  blue-and-black  dragon- 
flies  at  the  same  time. 

One  year,  when  spring  arrived,  I  was  seized 
with  a  great  desire  to  achieve  that  which  I  had 
not  before,  and  carry  some  of  the  Water-tigers 
through  their  successive  stages  and  observe  their 
transformation  into  beetles.  Accordingly  I  pro- 
cured a  collection  of  these  Iarva3  from  the  brook. 
One  of  these  larvae  was  Oliver.  He  was  so 
named  because,  like  Twist  of  trite  fame,  he  con- 
tinually sighed  for  more  polliwogs.  The  num- 
ber of  these  interesting  creatures  that  Oliver  and 
his  brethren  devoured  passes  belief.  My  life  was 
made  a  burden  to  me,  owing  to  the  necessity 


WATER-TIGERS.  65 

of  frequent  trips  to  the  creek  to  get  polliwogs 
enough  to  sustain  the  breath  in  life  of  Oliver  and 
his  brethren.  I  was  also  compelled  to  become 
a  constructor  of  imitation  ponds,  lest  the  larva? 
should  want  to  burrow  in  the  earth  at  times  when 
I  was  not  around  to  give  them  any  to  burrow  in. 
Oliver's  pond  was  constructed  of  a  big,  cracked 
marble  basin,  that  had  once  been  stationary  but 
was  so  no  longer,  and  a  porcelain  lid  of  capacious 
diameter.  The  lid  being  turned  upside  down 
and  filled  with  water  made  Oliver's  pond,  and 
this  being  set  in  the  middle  of  the  basin  full  of 
earth,  behold  the  lake  was  complete. 

A  section  of  mosquito-bar  was  tied  over  the 
whole  so  that  should  Oliver  feel  inclined  to 
wander  from  the  limits  of  the  basin  and  make  his 
tomb  in  the  round,  big  earth,  he  could  not  do  so. 
The  search  for  his  sepulchre  would  certainly  have 
been  discouraging  then.  But  Oliver  was  capable 
of  giving  me  any  amount  of  discouragement. 

After  all  my  tribulations,  early  one  morning 
toward  the  end  of  April,  I  found  he  was  not  in 
his  lake.  Joy  filled  my  soul,  for  I  knew  he  had 
buried  himself.  He  had  stuffed  himself  with  the 
slain  and  had  left  two  live  polliwogs  to  mourn  his 
departure. 

Seizing  a  spoon  I  began  to  dig,  feeling  con- 
fident that  I  should  find  Oliver's  tomb  in  a  few 
moments,  and  intending,  after  looking  at  him,  to 
cover  him  gently  again  and  stick  up  a  tombstone 


66  UP  AND    DOWN  THE   BROOKS. 

in  the  shape  of  a  chip,  and  then  patiently  wait 
the  two  or  three  weeks  necessary  before  I  should 
hail  the  arisen  Oliver  in  the  guise  of  a  beetle. 

But  I  dug  and  dug  and  still  no  Oliver  ap- 
peared. I  think  I  can  safely  say  that  seldom 
since  the  days  of  my  mud-pie  infancy  have  my 
hands  been  so  encased  in  mud  as  on  the  day  of 
my  dig  after  Oliver,  I  crumbled  the  wet  earth 
till  at  last  I  reached  the  bottom  of  the  basin,  and 
yet  I  had  found  nothing  of  the  one  of  whom  I 
was  in  search.  But,  alas  !  I  had  found  something 
else.  It  was  some  secret  holes  that  I  had  for- 
gotten, the  holes  that  in  stationary  basins  lead  to 
the  overflow  pipe.  If  Oliver  found  those  holes 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  managed  to  squeeze 
himself  through  and  depart  down  the  pipe  to  the 
outer  world.  In  despair  I  replaced  his  lake,  and 
tied  on  his  mosquito -bar.  I  left  his  dish  full  of 
water,  that  if  the  wanderer  returned  he  might 
find  a  place  in  which  to  swim,  but  my  heart  told 
me  that  I  should  never  behold  Oliver  again.  On 
mature  consideration  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Oliver  slipped  under  the  mosquito -bar  someway 
instead  of  going  down  the  overflow  pipe. 

About  this  time  also  perished  the  Scarer  of 
Soap  -  Dish  -  Lid  Lake.  His  name  was  given 
him  because  his  pond  was  formed  of  a  soap-dish 
lid  turned  wrong  side  up,  and  he  scared  every 
polliwog  that  visited  him.  The  cause  of  the 
Scarer's  death  was  the  exuberance  of  Sol's  rays. 


WATER-TIGERS.  67 

Thinking  my  larvae  protected  enough,  I  left  them 
one  hot  day,  but  when  I  returned  the  Scarer  could 
scare  no  more.  The  water  of  his  lake  had  be- 
come too  warm,  and  I  barely  rescued  his  brother, 
the  Conqueror  of  Coffee-Pot-Lid  Lake,  from  a 
similar  fate.  I  might  as  well  have  let  him  alone, 
however,  for  although  after  a  day  of  languishing 
he  seemed  to  recover  his  health,  yet  he  died 
within  a  week.  I  had  removed  all  the  larvae's 
lakes  to  the  shade  of  a  high  board  fence  where 
they  might  surely  have  been  cool  enough,  but  the 
Conqueror's  first  taste  of  warm  water  seemed  to 
have  been  too  much  for  him. 

The  Frightener  of  Flower  -  Pot  Lake  disap- 
peared in  the  same  mysterious  manner  that  Oli- 
ver had  done.  I  never  saw  such  exasperating 
ingenuity  as  was  displayed  by  some  of  my  pris- 
oners. 

One  day  I  came  upon  Conqueror  II.  of  Cof- 
fee-Pot-Lid Lake  outside  of  the  water,  lying  on 
the  earth.  I  supposed  that  he  would  dig  his 
hole  before  my  eyes,  but  after  my  coming  he 
walked  around  a  little  and  then  plunged  into  his 
lake  once  more  and  hid  beneath  a  sprig  of  alys- 
sum,  remarking  that  he  was  just  as  proud  as  some 
other  people,  and  if  there  was  any  digging  to  be 
done  he  preferred  to  have  no  visitors  during  the 
performance.  I  told  him  that  that  seemed  to  be 
the  opinion  of  all  of  his  brethren,  but  he  should 
remember  the  saying  of  Shakespeare  :  — 


68  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

"  Oh,  a  pit  of  clay  for  to  be  made 
For  such  a  guest  is  meet. ' ' 

He  made  no  answer  to  this  bit  of  good  advice, 
but  he  must  have  taken  it  to  heart,  for  in  the 
afternoon  when  I  visited  him  and  gently  assisted 
him  partly  out  of  the  lake,  he  took  the  hint  and 
came  entirely  out.  Poking  his  head  down  under 
a  clod,  he  remained  in  that  position  quite  a  while, 
perhaps  revolving  in  his  mind  the  momentous 
question  whether  the  earth  was  indeed  a  better 
place  of  residence  than  Coffee  -  Pot  -  Lid  -  Lake. 
He  occasionally  wriggled  his  tail,  breathing  yet 
through  that  useful  member.  He  gradually  be- 
came drier.  He  had  been  afflicted  with  quick, 
convulsive  pants,  presumably  useful  to  him  in 
getting  rid  of  the  water  that  clung  to  him.  Half 
an  hour  went  by.  A  mosquito,  delighted  with 
the  stillness  of  the  observer,  persistently  en- 
deavored to  make  a  meal  off  that  much-enduring 
person,  but  was  at  last  slapped  to  death.  Various 
flies  were  also  afflicted  with  curiosity  as  to  why 
any  mortal  should  be  sitting  on  the  piazza  in 
their  way.  Growing  impatient  at  last,  I  picked  a 
sprig  and  gave  the  Conqueror  a  little  prick  there- 
with. So  successful  was  this  manoeuvre  that 
the  surprised  Conqueror  executed  a  somersault 
and  landed  on  his  back.  I  think  he  had  been 
asleep.  Recovering  his  dignity  the  Conqueror 
turned  his  head  toward  his  lake.  But  he  re- 
mained on  land.  I  was  called  away  on  an 


WATER-TIGERS.  69 

errand,  and  when  I  returned  some  two  hours 
later  the  Conqueror  was  still  in  an  undecided 
frame  of  mind. 

Thinking  that  perhaps  he  expected  me  to  per- 
form the  office  of  sexton,  I  poked  a  hole  and  as- 
sisted him  into  it.  He  seemed  gratified,  but  the 
next  day  he  came  out.  His  tomb  did  not  suit 
him,  so  I  dug  him  a  hole  long  enough  for  him  to 
lie  down  in  comfortably.  This  suited  better,  but 
it  seemed  to  be  a  vexed  question  in  Conqueror 
II.'s  mind  as  to  which  was  the  more  proper,  to 
be  buried  with  his  head  to  the  west  or  to  the  east. 
He  lay  facing  the  east  a  while,  but  afterwards 
changed  to  the  other  position. 

I  felt  conscience-stricken.  Perhaps  I  had  un- 
justly accused  the  Conqueror.  How  did  I  know 
he  could  dig  ?  What  had  he  to  dig  with  ?  His 
legs  looked  too  weak,  but  I  had  thought  he  would 
use  his  mandibles,  in  the  way  that  I  had  seen 
Carabidce  larvae  make  holes  in  the  earth.  But 
the  ground-beetle-larva3  had  always  lived  in  the 
ground  and  been  used  to  the  menial  employment 
of  digging,  whereas  the  Conqueror  had  had  noth- 
ing but  water  to  go  through. 

It  was  the  righteous  larva  of  Yeast-Powder- 
Lid  Lake  that  undeceived  me.  He  was  missing 
one  morning,  and  digging  after  him  with  a  heavy 
heart,  —  for  I  had  learned  to  expect  that  my 
captives  would  escape,  —  to  my  joyful  surprise  I 
found  him  nearly  at  the  bottom  of  the  earth  in 


70  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

the  flower-pot.  He  was  probably  aiming  at  the 
hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  flower-pot,  but  I  stopped 
that  up  immediately. 

Having  thus  learned  that  these  larvae  could  dig, 
I  went  indignantly  back  to  the  Conqueror  and 
dumped  the  earth  in  on  that  impostor.  He  was 
lying  facing  the  west,  but  I  gave  him  no  time  to 
assume  a  more  orthodox  position.  A  person  that 
would  tell  as  many  lies  as  the  Conqueror  did  has 
nothing  to  do  with  orthodoxy  anyway.  The  Con- 
queror was  like  all  the  rest  of  us.  He  preferred 
to  have  some  one  else  do  his  digging  for  him.  The 
more  I  study  bugs,  the  more  do  I  perceive  the 
resemblances  between  them  and  human  beings. 
Nevertheless  I  did  not  relish  being  appointed  Sex- 
ton of  the  Graveyard  of  Beetles. 

My  record  of  the  Conqueror  for  the  next  few 
days  is  that  he  arose  from  his  grave  mornings, 
and  was  promptly  buried  again  by  the  Sexton.  I 
know  not  the  number  of  times,  but  at  last  the 
Conqueror  took  up  his  residence  under  a  tin  lid 
and  refused  to  stay  buried  at  all. 

The  proper  way  for  these  larvae  to  do  is  to 
make  round  cells  for  themselves  in  the  ground.  I 
dug  down  to  see  one  of  my  larvae  that  had  been 
buried  about  a  week  and  found  him  in  quite  a 
finely  made  cell  that  he  had  hollowed  out.  He 
was  indignant  at  my  intrusion,  however,  and  I 
withdrew.  He  was  the  same  larva  of  Yeast-Pow- 
der-Lid Lake  that  had  informed  me  of  the  base- 


WATER-TIGERS.  71 

ness  of  the  Conqueror.  After  this  larva  had  been 
buried  nineteen  days  I  again  dug  down  to  see  how 
he  was  getting  along.  He  had  split  a  hole  in  the 
skin  of  his  back,  and  four  or  five  white  segments 
of  his  body  bulged  out  of  the  rent.  He  wriggled, 
and  I  again  withdrew. 

Will  it  be  believed  that  not  a  single  larva  arose 
as  a  beetle  ?  There  was  at  first  a  slight  doubt  in 
the  case  of  the  larva  of  Yeast-Powder-Lid  Lake, 
for  I  found  his  empty  husk,  but  I  know  now  that 
its  emptiness  was  due,  not  to  a  secret  resurrection, 
but  to  the  ants.  After  all  my  labors  in  digging 
earth-worms  and  in  going  after  polliwogs,  this  was 
my  reward. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  unresur- 
rected  dead  and  of  those  that  died  before  burying 
themselves  :  — 

1.  Conqueror  of  Coffee-Pot-Lid  Lake. 

2.  Conqueror  II. 

3.  The  Hesitator. 

4.  Larva  of  Yeast-Powder-Lid  Lake. 

5.  Scarer  of  Soap-Dish-Lid  Lake. 

6.  Triumpher  of  Tin- Pan  Lake. 

7.  Monarch  of  Mortar  Lake. 

8.  "  The  Last." 

List  of  those  that  "  played  hookey  "  :  — 

1.  Oliver. 

2.  Frightener  of  Flower-Pot  Lake. 

3.  "  The  Last-But-One." 


72  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Numbers  of  other  larvae  of  no  names  perished 
in  their  infancy.  The  Monarch  of  Mortar  Lake, 
however,  deserves  honorable  mention.  I  am  al- 
most certain  that,  if  the  Sexton  of  the  Grave- 
yard of  Beetles  had  left  the  Monarch  alone,  he 
would  have  come  out  as  a  beetle.  But  said  Sex- 
ton was  too  officious,  and  to  that  may  be  ascribed 
the  Monarch's  death.  I  am  sure  his  intentions 
were  all  right.  He  was  the  only  one  of  all  the 
larvae  that  managed,  after  forming  a  round  cell,  to 
pull  off  his  skin  and  become  a  pupa. 

The  Monarch  had  left  the  watery  for  the  earthy 
element  on  the  7th  of  May.  The  8th  of  June 
an  unlucky  fit  of  curiosity  seized  me  and  I  ex- 
plored the  depths  to  see  what  had  become  of 
him.  I  found  that  he  had  made  a  good-sized 
round  hole  as  big  as  a  small  potato.  Inside  the 
cell  was  the  old  skin  overcoat  that  the  Monarch 
had  worn  as  a  larva.  Outside,  below  the  cell, 
having  evidently  tumbled  out  through  my  fault, 
was  the  Monarch  himself,  but  so  changed  that 
one  would  hardly  have  known  him,  for  he  was 
very  much  fatter  than  he  had  been  as  a  larva, 
and  was  now  a  big,  white  pupa,  with  legs  folded 
on  his  breast,  and  dull,  black  eyes  showing  under 
the  white.  He  looked  as  if  he  were  made  of  con- 
densed milk.  After  this  the  Monarch  turned 
dark,  but  the  poor  fellow  never  came  out,  for  the 
Sexton  had  been  his  murderer. 

The    next    time   that    I    undertake    to    raise 


WATER-TIGERS.  73 

Water -tigers  will  probably  be  when  I  can  af- 
ford to  hire  a  small  boy  to  bring  me  a  small  pail- 
ful of  black  toad-polliwogs  daily. 


Dytiscus  pupa. 
The  Monarch  at  rest. 

I  have  read  that  in  1258  the  commons  of  Cas- 
tile bluntly  required  the  king  "  to  bring  his  ap- 
petite within  a  more  reasonable  compass."  And 
the  king  meekly  assented  to  the  proposition.  But 
what  is  a  king  compared  with  a  Water  -  tiger  ? 
The  former  might  agree  to  being  deprived  of  any- 
thing he  wanted  to  eat,  but  the  latter  would  rebel. 
Pliny  tells  of  men  living  on  the  smell  of  the  river 
Ganges.  But  though  the  odor  arising  from  some 
of  the  pools  in  which  Water-tigers  live  is  quite 
perceptible  at  times,  yet  the  creatures  hardly  seem 
to  thrive  on  that  alone.  For  Water -tigers  are 
not  candidates  for  Nirvana,  and  therefore  do  not 
subsist  on  "  insipid  food,"  as  those  worthies  were 
expected  to.  Like  the  Macdonalds  of  Glencoe, 
the  Tigers  have,  indeed,  "  been  guilty  of  many 
black  murthers."  But  then,  one  can  hardly  ex- 
pect the  Water-tigers  to  practise  such  abstinence 


74  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

as  the  Druids  were  wont  to  use  when  they,  in  or- 
der to  accustom  themselves  to  curbing  their  appe- 
tites, would  have  a  banquet  prepared,  and  would 
survey  the  feast  for  some  time.  Then,  their  firm- 
ness having  been  sufficiently  tried,  they  all  with- 
drew without  having  eaten  a  morsel.  Water- 
tigers  never  would  think  of  such  abstinence,  and 
you  shall  find  in  their  homes  as  many  relics  of 
dead  and  gone  beings  as  the  churches  of  Europe 
contained  in  the  days  when  Geneva  showed  a 
piece  of  pumice  as  the  brain  of  the  apostle  Peter, 
and  a  bone  of  a  deer  as  the  arm  of  St.  Anthony, 
and  when  other  places  contained  the  hair  of  the 
Virgin,  the  tooth  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  shoul- 
der-blade of  Simeon,  and  a  lip  of  one  of  the  Inno- 
cents. 

Perhaps,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  might 
wish  to  go  dredging  themselves,  I  should  describe 
the  implement  with  which  I  catch  water-creatures. 
There  is  no  need  of  spending  a  cent  on  apparatus 
for  catching  such  insects.  My  dredger  is  of  my 
own  manufacture  and  consists  of  a  strong,  round, 
iron  hoop  that  was  probably  once  on  a  keg  or 
something  of  the  sort.  To  this  hoop  I  have  fas- 
tened a  strainer  consisting  of  apiece  of  an  old  cal- 
ico apron.  Occasionally  the  calico  tears,  but  it  is 
easily  mended  and  is  better  than  mosquito-bar  be- 
cause that  will  be  likely  to  let  small  Iarva3  escape 
through  the  meshes.  The  handle  of  the  dredger 
is  an  old  round  stick  about  a  yard  long.  I  think 


WATER-TIGERS. 


75 


it  was  once  part  of  a  wooden  clothes-horseo  One 
end  of  the  stick  being 
split  admits  the  iron 
hoop,  and  the  two  are 
firmly  bound  together 
by  strips  of  stout  cot- 
ton cloth. 

Armed  with  such 
an  implement  as  this, 
one  can  sweep  under 
the  water- weeds  and 
be  victorious.  But 
use  old  calico  or 
something  thin  for 
the  strainer,  or  your 
patience  may  be  ex- 
hausted while  you 
wait  for  the  water  to 
run  out  so  that  you 
can  see  your  captives. 

Glass  fruit- jars  or 
old  jelly-glasses  make 
fine  homes  for  beetles 
and  bugs  that  do  not 
need  to  come  out  on 
dry  land  at  times.  A 
stick  or  bunch  of 
grass  is  all  the  rest-  Home-made  Dredger. 

ing-place  needed  by  such  insects. 

The  finest  and  cheapest  receptacles  that  I  have 


76  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

ever  found  for  caterpillars  are  empty  yeast-powder 
or  preserve  cans.  In  some  families  it  is  a  problem 
to  know  what  to  do  with  all  the  plum,  peach,  or 
tomato  cans  that  accumulate.  But  when  there  is 
an  amateur  entomologist  in  the  family,  that  diffi- 
culty vanishes.  There  is  nothing  so  adapted  to 
caterpillars,  according  to  my  experience.  Tins 
are  better  than  bottles.  There  is  a  warm,  un- 
healthf ul  atmosphere  in  a  bottle  that  is  not  found 
in  a  tin  can.  Rinse  the  tins  that  no  juice  may  re- 
main from  the  former  contents,  for  that  will  draw 
ants.  One  can  keep  caterpillars  in  such  a  tin  till 
they  are  fully  grown,  and  oftentimes  they  will  go 
up  and  form  their  chrysalides  on  the  mosquito- 
bar  that  is  tied  over  the  top  to  prevent  the  cater- 
pillars from  running  away  and  to  allow  a  good 
circulation  of  air.  Lady-bug  larvae  and  other 
creatures  will  come  to  perfection  in  such  tins, 
which  should  be  put  in  some  shady  place  where 
the  sun  will  not  heat  them.  One  may  learn  the 
habits  and  observe  the  customs  of  all  the  creatures 
one  can  find  in  the  neighborhood,  without  spend- 
ing anything  unless  it  is  for  shoe-leather. 

But  do  hide  your  tins  and  yourself  when  you 
are  at  such  work,  or  you  will  hear  a  window  open, 
or  else  it  will  open  without  your  hearing  it,  and 
you  will  have  to  endure  some  such  talk  as  this  :  — 

"  What  are  you  petting  there  ?  " 

"  Caterpillars."  I  stand  up  and  suffer  a 
faint  wonder  to  pass  through  my  mind  if  I  am 


WATER-TIGERS.  77 

never  to  be  safe  from  intrusion,  even  in  my  own 
yard. 

"  What  do  you  do  with  them  ?  " 

"  Keep  them  till  they  turn  to  butterflies." 

"  What  do  you  do  with  them  then  ?  " 

"  Let  them  go." 

"  Oh,  you  just  keep  them  to  "  — 

"  To  see  them  transform." 

"What?" 

"  To  see  them  transform." 

Amazement  evidently  filled  the  soul  of  the 
neighbor. 

"  I  never  saw  them,"  she  said. 

And  this  from  a  woman  forty-five  or  so,  with 
eyes  in  her  head.  What  sort  of  a  world  do  such 
people  live  in,  that  they  never  notice  anything? 
And  what,  I  wonder,  can  be  that  woman's  idea  of 
some  of  the  verses  in  the  Psalms  ?  I  presume  she 
has  read  them  a  hundred  times.  "  Praise  the 
Lord  from  the  earth  "  ye  "  creeping  things,"  says 
David.  What  are  the  "  creeping  things,"  accord- 
ing to  this  woman's  eyes  ?  I  wonder  if  she  ever 
explained  that  verse  to  herself. 

I  remember  the  day  when  the  idea  first  entered 
my  brain  that  other  creatures  than  human  have 
interesting  lives.  I  must  have  been  about  eight 
or  nine  years  old.  I  had  been  taking  a  walk  in  a 
little  mining1  town  among  the  Sierra  Nevada  foot- 

c5  c5 

hills.  A  minister  was  with  me,  and  he  had  a 
hand-microscope  or  glass  in  his  pocket. 


78  UP  AND  DOWN  THE   BROOKS. 

We  sat  down  under  the  trees  on  a  hill  some- 
where back  of  a  church,  and  he  showed  me 
through  the  glass  a  multitude  of  little  creatures 
living  in  the  heart  of  a  yellow  flower.  And  he 
said  to  me  that  perhaps  those  tiny  folk  had  houses 
and  cities  inside  that  flower,  just  as  we  bigger 
people  had  outside  of  it.  It  was  a  wonderful 
thing  to  me  to  look  at  the  mites  and  imagine  what 
the  minister  suggested,  and  I  have  a  fancy  that 
perhaps  I  longed  to  be  one  of  those  little  things 
for  a  time,  just  to  see  the  supposed  houses  and 
cities.  But  I  remember  that  as  a  very  wonder- 
ful day,  one  on  which  I  did  not  see  half  enough 
through  that  glass  to  suit  me,  but  still  one  on 
which  I  obtained  a  glimpse  of  a  world  very  differ- 
ent from  that  in  which  I  usually  lived. 

No  wonder  people  unacquainted  with  such  a 
world  ask  questions.  Some  day  I  may  write  "  A 
Catechism  for  The  Warning  of  Those  Who  Pro- 
pose to  be  Bug  -  Hunters."  It  will  contain  a 
number  of  questions  that  they  may  expect  to  be 
asked  and  that  they  must  always  be  prepared  to 
answer,  if  they  do  not  wish  to  be  thought  idiots. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  they  will  be  thought  such, 
anyway.  Some  of  the  questions  will  be  these : 
"What  are  you  doing?"  "What  are  those?" 
"  What  are  they  good  for  ?  "  "  What  do  you  do 
with  them  ?  "  "  What  are  you  after  ?  "  "  What 
do  you  get  them  for  ?  "  "  What  makes  you  like 
them?" 


WATER-TIGERS.  79 

This  is  a  fearfully  inquisitive  world. 

But  there  is  one  question  that  is  seldom  asked 
of  a  bug-hunter.  It  is  this,  "  Who  made  them  ?  " 
The  majority  of  people  scarcely  pause  to  realize 
that  the  different  kinds  of  creatures  represent  so 
many  of  God's  different  thoughts,  and  that  it 
might  possibly  be  worth  while  to  glance  at  the 
things  that  He  has  deigned  to  place  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


WHIRLIGIGS. 

"  Here 's  another  ballad  of  a  fish." 

Winter's  Tale. 

THE  end  of  May  has  come.  Filaree,  with  all 
its  spikes,  is  abroad  in  the  land.  Mustard  shines 
like  the  sun.  Blue-grass  blooms.  So  do  blue- 
bells, —  JBrodicea.  White  Yarrow 
shows  his  snowy  head  beside  the 
stream.  Blue  lupines  are  mixed 
with  yellow  poppies 
among  the  already 
browning  grass  by 
the  roads.  In  one 
place  by  the  brook 
is  a  big  clump  of 
sticky  ARmulus,  — 
M.  glutinosus.  The 
locust-trees  are  full 
of  perfume.  A  great  yellow-and-black  Papilio, 
swallow-tail  butterfly,  flits  above  the  grain  on  the 
hill-top.  Many  wicked  little  green  beetles,  Dla- 
brotica,  the  pests  of  fruit-growers,  crawl  over  the 


Blue-bells. 
Bud  and  flower  of  Brodicea  terrestris. 


WHIRLIGIGS. 


81 


stems  of  the  blue  lupine  that  is  just  now  in  its 
glory. 


Mimulus  glutinosus. 

Let  us  climb  this  bank. 
Kind  Neighbor  Thistle,  give  us 
a  hand.  Benevolent  Brother 
Teasel,  do  likewise.  It  is  only 
in  that  one  place  that  the  Mini- 
ithis  grows.  Perhaps  it  may 
die  out  from  this  region  alto- 
gether some  day.  Wild  flow- 
ers do  die  out.  I  can  remem- 
ber when  shooting  -  stars,  Do- 
decatheon  Mvud'ui,  cowslips, 


grew  near  here,  but  it  has  been    Dodecatheon 


Shooting1-! 


82  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

many  a  day  since  I  gathered  them  in  this  district. 
There  are  none  here  now,  and  I  hope  the  same 
fate  will  not  overtake  the  butterfly  lily  that  conies 
in  but  scanty  numbers  among  the  dry  grass  of 
these  hills  in  June. 

From  this  height  we  may  look  down  and  see 
the  Whirligig  beetles  on  the  surface  of  the  pools. 


Mariposa  (Butterfly)  Lily. 
Calochortus  Weedii. 

"  Death's  net,  whom,  none  resist,"  is  often  more 
full  of  Whirligigs  than  is  the  dredger  of  the 
persistent,  unsuccessful  mortal.  A  dead  Whirli- 
gig beetle  is  a  solemn  sight.  The  one  that  was 
the  liveliest  beetle  of  the  brook,  an  animated  flash, 
a  perpetual  whirl,  the  one  that  seemed  as  if  he 
could  not  move  quickly  enough  to  suit  himself, 


WHIRLIGIGS.  83 

lies  in  your  hand,  stiff,  with  his  legs  folded  in 
death.  But  if  the  beetle  himself  is  solemn,  some- 
times his  eyes  are  ghastly.  The  compound  eyes 
of  these  Whirligigs  are  very  curious  objects.  One 
would  surely  think  in  looking  at  the  dead  beetle 
that  he  had  four  distinct  eyes,  two  in  the  usual 
place,  and  two  others  under  his  chin,  so  to  speak. 
In  one  beetle,  long-dead,  that  I  examined,  the 
under  eyes  were  the  more  ghastly.  They  looked 
white,  like  a  human  eye  that  had  neither  iris  nor 
pupil,  while  the  pair  of  eyes  above  showed  black 
inside  a  rim  of  the  same  whitish  color.  In  a  bee- 
tle just  dead  both  pair  of  eyes  look  black.  The 
eyes  under  the  chin,  of  course,  are  the  ones  that 
the  Whirligig  always  keeps  under  water  to  see  if 
any  enemy  is  coming  up  from  below. 

How  can  a  beetle  be  sensitive  to  knocks  when 
he  is  incased  in  such  an  armor  as  this  ?  The  Gy- 
rinidce  look  as  if  they  had  suits  of  steel.  Not  for 
them  are  the  scratches  and  bumps  of  life.  It 
is  enough  to  make  human  beings  wonder  how  it 
would  seem  to  be  so  safely  shut  in  from  all  pricks, 
and  one  looks  at  one's  finger-nails,  remembering 
the  old  Jewish  tradition  that  Adam  and  Eve  at 
first  were  entirely  covered  with  finger-nail,  but, 
after  the  fall,  this  invulnerable  panoply  dropped 
off,  and  mortals  since  then  have  had  skins  that 
could  be  hurt.  Nevertheless  the  finger-nails  were 
left  that  the  first  pair  might  always  remember 
Eden's  freedom  from  pain,  when  they  looked  at 
their  hands. 


84  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

If,  as  in  Adam  and  Eve's  case,  panoply  against 
harm  argues  innocence,  then  these  Gyrinidce 
might  claim  to  be  the  most  perfect  of  beetles. 
But  alas !  here  is  another  case  of  duplicity  in  this 
brook,  for  the  Gyrinidce  are  black  murderers,  kill- 
ing by  trade,  and  when  one  sees  a  host  of  them 
whirling  over  some  corner  of  a  pond,  it  is  as 
though  one  were  looking  at  a  band  of  pirates,  for 
every  available  small  insect  that  comes  within 
reach  of  those  GfyriniddB  is  doomed.  Sociability 
is  a  characteristic  of  the  Gyrinidce.  It  is  seldom 
that  a  single  one  goes  skimming  by  himself.  Gen- 
erally they  prefer  to  whirl  in  small  crowds.  Be- 
holding their  evil  deeds  one  might  think  that  the 
Gyrinidce  were  sociable  in  order  to  keep  each 
other  in  countenance,  much  as  a  band  of  sworn 
cut-throats  might  be. 

Still,  during  the  last  few  days  of  February  or 
the  first  of  March,  before  the  Gyrinidce  have 
come  out  in  great  numbers,  there  will  here  and 
there  be  found  one  whirling  by  himself.  It  re- 
quires some  skill  to  catch  a  beetle  of  this  sort, 
unless  one  has  learned  the  trick  of  confusing  him 
by  splashing  with  the  dredger.  The  beetle  will 
whirl  and  whirl  till  one's  eyes  are  blinded  and 
one's  head  is  dizzy  with  the  effort  of  following 
the  motions ;  and  then,  unless  a  fortunate  scoop 
is  made  suddenly  with  the  dredger,  down  goes 
the  beetle  under  the  surface  and  is  lost  to  view. 
Moreover  it  is  a  wise  person  that  can  keep  a 


WHIRLIGIGS.  85 

Whirligig  after  catching  one.  As  a  youth  once 
said  to  me,  after  looking  at  my  bottle  of  captured 
Whirligigs,  "  They  act  as  if  they  were  crazy." 
Moreover,  Whirligigs  can  climb  glass,  and  if  one 
takes  off  the  mosquito-bar  carelessly  from  the 
bottle,  as  likely  as  not  a  Whirligig  drops  over 
the  side.  It  is  a  good  thing  that  these  Gyrinidce 
cannot  walk  well.  If  they  could  walk  out  of 
water  as  well  as  they  can  dash  around  011  top  of 
that  element,  there  would  be  110  catching  them. 
As  it  is,  however,  they  are  easily  caught  on  dry 
land,  for  they  have  to  move  at  a  pace  that  must 
be  exasperatingly  slow  to  them,  since  their  feet 
are  not  suited  to  crawling.  Then  it  is  that  one 
may  observe  the  relative  difference  in  the  pairs 
of  legs  of  these  Gyrlnidce ;  the  first  pair  being 
the  longest  and  capable  of  being  suddenly  thrust 
out  at  the  prey,  and  the  hind  pair  being  flat  like 
oars,  but  like  oars  with  short  handles,  not  long 
ones,  as  in  the  Water-Tigers.  The  Dytiscidce 
have  long  hind  legs,  the  Gyrinidce  long  fore 
ones. 

"They  call  them  'good -luck  bugs,'"  said  a 
little  fellow  to  me  once  at  the  brook,  as  he  looked 
upon  the  Whirligigs. 

"  What  do  they  call  them  that  for  ?  "  asked  I, 
in  search  of  information. 

"  Because  they  bring  good  luck,"  answered  the 
boy,  confidently. 

"Do  they?" 


86  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

"  Yes  'm.  You  just  take  and  keep  one  of  them 
and  you  '11  have  good  luck." 

"  Why,  is  n't  that  strange  !  Did  you  ever  try 
it  ?  "  asked  I,  being  bent  on  finding  out  what  the 
little  revealer  of  superstition  would  say. 

"  Yes  'm,"  responded  he ;  "I  kept  some  of 
them,  and  I  always  had  good  luck,  every  day 
'most.  One  day  I  found  two  bits  ; "  and,  having 
proved  his  theory  to  his  own  satisfaction,  and 
demonstrated  his  right  to  be  called  a  Californian 
by  his  use  of  the  common  expression  for  twenty- 
five  cents,  he  proceeded  to  assist  in  the  dredging, 
innocent  of  the  knowledge  that  to  be  a  healthy, 
dirty  boy,  with  no  care  but  to  hunt  red-legs  in 
the  creek,  is  indeed  to  "  have  good-luck  every 
day,"  without  any  assistance  from  the  virtuous 
Whirligigs. 

But  if  he  was  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  bles- 
sedness of  possessing  these  beetles,  this  boy  had 
observed  their  habits,  for  he  informed  me  that 
when  he  kept  the  "  good-luck  bugs,"  he  gave  them 
"  about  five  flies "  every  day  at  noon,  and  that 
the  Whirligigs  would  jump  for  them,  as  soon  as 
they  were  thrown  in,  and  would  eat  them.  This 
statement  can  be  verified  by  any  one  who  is  will- 
ing to  catch  a  fly  for  Gyrinus.  Three  or  four 
beetles  will  try  to  devour  a  single  fly ;  in  fact,  on 
an  especially  hungry  day  I  have  seen  eleven 
Whirligigs  form  a  circle  around  a  fly  and  grasp 
it,  while  on  the  outside  of  the  circle  were  still 


WHIRLIGIGS.  87 

others  trying  to  poke  their  way  in  to  the  centre 
of  attraction.  I  do  hope  that  boy  killed  the 
flies  before  giving  them  to  the  beetles.  Had  I 
known  the  habits  of  Whirligigs  as  well  then  as  I 
do  now  I  should  have  entreated  him  to  be  sure 
that  the  flies  were  dead.  Not  that  I  am  an  ad- 
mirer of  the  fly.  On  the  contrary,  I  abhor  him. 
But  one  does  not  like  to  see  him  killed  by  par- 
ticles. 

Just  about  the  time  when  Whirligigs  first 
begin  to  be  plentiful  in  the  spring,  the  last  of 
March,  there  will  come  up  in  one's  dredger  what 
look  like  bits  of  dry  tree-twigs.  They  are  five 
eighths  of  an  inch 
long,  or  thereabouts, 
composed  of  eight 
segments  looking  like 
the  divisions  of  a 

twig.     But  put  these  Pupa3  of  TipulidoBt 

sticks  into  water,  and 
they  will  float  perpendicularly,  not  horizontally 
after  the  manner  of  real  sticks,  and  one  will  no- 
tice that  from  the  part  that  is  uppermost  there 
stand  out  two  little  projections.  Some  day  when 
you  are  looking  at  these  "  twigs "  one  of  them 
will  give  a  kick,  and  the  next  morning,  when  you 
go  out  to  look  at  the  bottle,  you  will  find  the  twig 
with  a  hole  in  the  upper  part  of  it,  and  in  the 
upper  portion  of  the  bottle,  holding  itself  above 
water-line,  will  be  a  long-legged  fly.  This  fly 


88 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


came  out  of  the  "  twig,"  for  that  was  the  brown 
case,  covering  the  pupa  of  one  of  the  flies  that 
look  like  giant  mosquitoes,  the  Tipulidce. 

Daddy  Long-Legs  the  children  call  the  fly  re- 
lated to  this  that  passes  the  two  earlier  stages  of 
its  life  in  the  ground.  "  Crane-flies  "  others  name 
them,  and  the  French  cry  "  Tail- 
leurs,"  or  "  Couturieres."  I  think 
these  water-flies  sometimes  drown 
while  struggling  out  of  their  pupaB- 
cases.  At  least  I  have  found  one 
such  a  position  as  to  convey 
that  idea,  and  the  won- 
der is  that  any  of  them 
get  out  alive  when 
there  is  nothing  near 
to  be  grasped  by  the 
insect  during  the  ope- 
ration. 

If  you  know  where 
to  look  you  may  find 
other  Tipulid  larva? 
near  here.  A  few  live- 
oak-trees  are  scattered 
along  the  banks.  Some  of  the  trees  are  old,  for 
holes  in  their  trunks  show  the  rotting  wood 
within.  One  day  as  I  wandered  here  I  spied  in 
a  tree  a  hole  about  on  a  level  with  my  head. 
The  hole  extended  through  the  tree  so  that  I 
could  view  the  interior.  Black-bottomed  with  the 


Tipulid  Fly,  —  somewhat  larger 
than  mine. 


WHIRLIGIGS.  89 

debris  of  tree-decay,  the  hole  looked  mysterious. 
Should  I  explore  it  ?  I  did.  My  trowel  came 
forth  with  its  burden  of  black.  Spreading  it  on 
the  ground  I  looked  for  live  inhabitants  in  every 
trowelful.  A  mosquito  walked  sleepily  out  of  the 
debris  as  though  deprecating  my  actions.  A  small 
centipede,  I  believe,  threatened  me  with  destruc- 
tion. But  in  the  mass  I  found  the  larvae  of  ten 
Tipulid  flies,  one  wedged  into  the  side  of  a  piece 
of  wood  so  soft  that  I  could  mash  it  between  my 
fingers. 

The  larvae  were  light-lilac-colored  worms  from 
seven  eighths  to  an  inch  long,  with  bodies  ending 
in  a  round  of  V-shaped  points,  somewhat  like 
some  of  the  larvae  of  dragon-flies.  The  Tipulid 
worms  had  an  uncanny  way  of  moving,  the  black 
internal  arrangements  showing  in  places  under 
the  almost  transparent  skin,  giving  the  observer 
the  impression  that  the  creatures  might  be  break- 
ing to  pieces.  Extremely  uncomfortable  were  the 
larvae  on  being  dug  out  of  their  tree-home,  and 
unanimous  were  the  ten  in  their  appreciation  of  a 
jelly -glass  of  the  tree-mould  in  which  they  might 
hide  again.  They  soon  turned  to  pupae,  for  they 
were  nearly  grown.  Such  larvae  live  upon  vege- 
table mould.  Eeamur  found  that  such  creatures 
extract  all  the  nourishing  matter  from  the  earth 
that  they  eat.  One  would  think  it  a  pretty  dry 
diet,  yet  the  larvae  seemed  to  enjoy  life  in  the  old 
tree  that  opened  its  trunk  and  said  to  the  insect 


90  UP  AND   DOWN   THE  BROOKS, 

creation,  "  Come,  little  friends,  I  can  help  you 
still.  No  matter  if  I  am  old.  I  can  help  you 
better  on  that  very  account.  Whereas,  before, 
the  most  of  you  had  to  stay  outside,  I  can  take 
you  now  into  my  very  heart." 

All  who  have  kept  Whirligigs  know  that  they, 
like  the  Dytiscidce,  carry  down  bubbles,  and  you 
may  see  a  beetle  at  the  bottom  of  the  jar,  holding 
to  some  little  pebble  and  accompanied  by  his  tiny 
quota  of  air. 

Figuier  tells  us  that  in  a  little  lake  of  Solazies, 
Reunion  Island,  there  are  some  tropical  Gyrinidce 
of  a  somewhat  large  size,  and  that  the  patients, 
who  go  to  Solazies  for  the  mineral  waters,  amuse 
themselves  there  by  fishing  for  the  Whirligigs 
with  lines  baited  with  bits  of  red  cloth  which  the 
beetles  will  attack.  Some  of  my  little  Whirligigs 
are  also  deluded  by  a  snare  of  this  kind.  Fish- 
ing for  them  with  a  bit  of  red  braid  attached  to 
a  red  thread,  one  will  see  some  beetle  seize  it  and 
hold  on  till  he  is  brought  almost  out  of  the  jar, 
while  he  is  vigorously  seeking  for  nutriment  ap- 
parently in  the  braid.  A  white  bit  of  cloth  has 
also,  some  attractions.  I  suppose  it  reminds  the 
beetles,  at  first  sight,  of  a  white  moth.  Black 
cloth  seems  to  have  almost  no  interest  for  the 
Whirligigs. 

The  bill  of  fare  for  these  Gyrinidce,  as  far  as  I 
have  observed,  is  as  follows  :  — 


WHIRLIGIGS.  91 

1.  Middle-sized  Spiders.     (Often  taken  alive,  on  the 

whirl.) 

2.  Dead  Flies. 

3.  Live  black  gnat-worms. 

4.  Live  Aphides. 

5.  Dead  small  Moths. 

6.  Dead  Daddy  Long-Legs. 

7.  Dead  Mosquitoes. 

I  think  that  Whirligigs  are  cannibals,  since  I 
have  found  them  floating  dead  in  the  jar  with 
their  heads  off.  Still,  I  never  saw  a  Whirligig 
kill  another,  but  appearances  are  against  them. 

Whirligigs  seem  to  regard  ants  as  unworthy 
partners  in  this  dance  of  death  and  discard  them. 
I  should  not  think  myself  that  an  ant  would  be 
very  good  eating. 

I  do  not  remember  ever  having  seen  a  jump- 
ing-spider  discomfited  by  these  beetles.  The 
Whirligigs  will  skim  by  and  longingly  nip  at  a 
jumping-spider's  toes,  but  evidently  there  is  con- 
siderable fear  mingled  with  the  admiration,  even 
though  the  beetles  must  see  that  the  spider  is  in 
an  element  to  which  he  is  unused. 

Smaller  varieties  of  spiders  are  speedily  dis- 
posed of.  I  was  once  present  at  a  duel  between 
one  of  these  spiders  and  a  Whirligig,  in  which 
I  thought  at  first  that  the  black-mailed  warrior 
would  be  forced  to  yield,  for  the  spider  waved 
his  legs  over  the  Whirligig's  head  and  evidently 
was  quite  anxious  to  bite  him.  But  the  Whirl- 


92  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

igig,  undaunted,  plunged  into  the  spider's  em- 
brace, and,  before  I  could  divine  his  intention, 
that  Whirligig  bit  his  antagonist  directly  in  two 
at  the  waist  and  whirled  off  with  the  fore  part  of 
the  body,  leaving  the  hinder  half  to  the  care  of 
some  less  brave  Whirligigs.  So  ended  this  "  Gen- 
tle and  Joyous  Passage  of  Arms." 

Beetles  of  other  sorts  seem  to  be  rejected  by 
Whirligigs,  according  to  my  observations.  Prob- 
ably the  hard  outside  of  most  beetles  is  what  de- 
ters the  Whirligigs  from  attack.  A  dead  bee 
that  I  once  gave  them  was  merely  tasted  of.  Bee- 
flesh  and  ant-flesh  are  alike  distasteful,  which 
shows  that  Whirligigs  have  some  gustatory  pow- 
ers, as  well  as  other  folks. 

"  Tourniquets,''  turn-stiles,  or  turn-pikes,  the 
French  call  these  Whirligigs,  and,  if  one  of  these 
beetles  were  set  for  that  office,  I  think  he  would 
whirl  as  rapidly  as  did  ever  any  turn-stile.  Con- 
trary to  what  one  would  think,  these  lively  beetles 
seem  to  be  quite  well  contented  as  captives.  A 
jar  is  a  world  almost  big  enough  for  a  Whirligig. 

"  Beetles,"  says  old  De  Mouffet,  "  serve  divers 
uses,  for  they  both  profit  our  mindes,  and  they 
cure  some  infirmities  of  our  bodies."  I  do  not 
know  that  Whirligigs  are  remedies  for  any  of  the 
ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  If,  then,  these  beetles 
serve  no  use  for  our  "  infirmities,"  how  do  they 
"  profit  our  mindes  "  ? 

Well,  perhaps  they  may  remind  us  of  the  old, 


WHIRLIGIGS.  93 

old  truth  that,  be  we  nimble  as  we  may,  Death 
is  quicker  still,  and  shall  sometime  overtake  us. 
And  then,  if  we  have  spent  our  lives  snatching 
good  things  away  from  our  neighbors,  and  count- 
ing all  as  our  enemies,  only  valuing  others  for 
what  we  can  take  from  them,  we  shall  not  be 
missed  or  mourned  for,  though  we  no  longer 
glitter  in  the  sun.  Nature  itself  teaches  the 
lesson  of  death  ;  and  Louis  XIV.,  used  as  he 
was  to  adulation,  must  have  despised  Bourdaloue 
who,  having  cried  out  in  a  sermon,  "  All,  all 
must  die !  "  seeing  the  king  start,  hastened  to 
reassure  the  royal  mind  by  adding,  "  Almost  all, 
Sire!" 

Death  is  the  swiftest  of  all  things.  Is  that  the 
lesson,  of  the  Whirligig,  living  and  dead?  Per- 
haps some  observer,  more  wise  than  I,  can  find 
something  in  the  Gyrinidce  that  will  more  profit 
his  "  minde  "  than  this  lesson  of  mine.  To  every 
one  his  own  perception  and  the  responsibility 
thereof.  Only  it  does  no  good  to  learn  a  lesson 
from  a  book  or  from  nature,  unless  the  learner 
straightway  puts  it  in  practice  ;  and  a  warning  of 
an  event  is  of  no  value  unless  it  leads  those 
warned  to  make  ready  for  it. 

The  pictures  of  water-beetles  perhaps  give  some 
people  too  good  an  impression. 

"I'm  mamma's  little  water  -  beetle,"  said  a 
golden-haired  little  two-year-old  to  a  friend  of 
mine  who  had  been  showing  her  the  pictures  of 


94  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

insects.  Perhaps  when  the  child  is  older,  and 
when  she  better  understands  the  murderous  charac- 
ter of  many  water-beetles,  she  will  not  be  so  ready 
to  name  herself  after  them.  For  the  carnivorous 
water-beetles  are  as  bloodthirsty  as  were  the  mob 
that  Machiavelli  tells  us  tore  poor  Ser  Nuto  to 
pieces.  Says  that  chronicler :  "  Ser  Nuto  being 
brought  by  the  mob  into  the  court,  was  suspended 
from  the  gallows  by  one  foot ;  and  those  around 
having  torn  him  to  pieces,  in  little  more  than  a 
moment  nothing  remained  of  him  but  the  foot  by 
which  he  had  been  tied." 

Scarcely  so  large  a  remnant  as  that  is  left  of 
some  victims  after  the  water-beetles  have  done 
with  their  prey. 

The  willows  border  all  the  stream  here  for  a 
short  distance.  They  spring  up  at  irregular  inter- 
vals in  other  portions.  In  early  June  one  may 
walk  among  these  trees  and  note  the  many  galls 
that  swell  out  from  the  willow  leaves.  The  galls 
are  about  as  big  as  cherry-stones,  or  bigger,  and 
there  is  usually  one  gall  to  a  leaf,  though  two  are 
not  uncommon,  and  I  have  found  a  leaf  with 
four.  Open  one  of  these  galls  and  you  will  find 
a  very  small,  yellowish-white  worm  with  six  legs 
and  a  brown  head.  Look  at  the  head  under  a 
microscope,  and  the  worm  appears  exactly  as  if  he 
had  clapped  on  a  brown  night-cap.  This  night- 
cap is  hairy,  and  two  black  eyes  stick  out  of  it. 
It  is  very  hard  work  for  the  worm  to  walk  on 


WHIRLIGIGS.  95 

the  glass  slide,  and  one  can  have  a  good  look  at 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  contortions. 

I  wonder  if  such  willow-galls  have  never  been 
used  in  augury,  as  have  those  of  the  oak.  Gerard 
in  his  old  "  Herbal  "  tells  us  that  "  the  oke-apples 
being  broken  in  sunder  about  the  time  of  their 
withering  doe  foreshow  the  sequell  of  the  yeare, 
as  the  expert  Kentish  husbandmen  have  observed 
by  the  living  things  found  in  them  ;  as,  if  they 
finde  an  ant,  they  foretell  plenty  of  graine  to  en- 
sue ;  if  a  white  worm,  like  a  gentill  or  a  magot, 
then  they  prognosticate  murrain  of  beasts  and 
cat  tell ;  if  a  spider,  then  (say  they),  we  shall  have 
a  pestilence,  or  some  such  like  sickenesse  to  follow 
amongst  men.  These  things  the  learned  also 
have  observed  and  noted  ;  for  Matthiolus,  writing 
upon  Dioscorides,  saith  that,  before  they  have  an 
hole  through  them,  they  containe  in  them  either  a 
flie,  a  spider,  or  a  worme :  if  a  flie,  then  warre  in- 
sueth ;  if  a  creeping  worme,  then  scarcitie  of  vic- 
tuals; if  a  running  spider,  then  followeth  great 
sicknesse  or  mortalitie." 

On  these  willows,  too,  in  June,  I  once  found  a 
big,  green,  Sphinx  caterpillar,  the  same  shade  as 
the  willows,  just  about  a  match.  He  had  a  spike 
of  a  tail,  after  the  manner  of  his  race,  and  that 
tail  was  gorgeous,  being  blue  above  and  red  be- 
neath. He  had  eight  little  buttonholes  of  pink 
spiracles  on  his  sides,  and  was  dotted  all  over  with 
fine  white  points.  There  was  a  well  -  developed 


96  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

stripe  of  yellowish-white  running  obliquely  down 
each  side  from  the  tail,  and  five  other,  scarcely 
noticeable,  small  stripes  ran  parallel  to  this  on  each 
side.  His  ridiculous-looking  head  was  bordered 
on  two  sides  by  a  rim  of  yellow,  like  a  picture  set 
in  a  brass  frame,  so  that  his  head  had  the  shape 
of  the  letter  A,  without  the  cross-mark.  Besides 
this  he  had  two  white  lines  that  ran  the  length  of 
his  sides.  Altogether  I  was  very  proud  of  him, 
and  was  always  getting  scared  over  his  supposed 
loss,  he  being  so  much  the  color  of  the  willow- 
leaves  that  I  was  always  missing  him,  even  when 
before  my  eyes.  At  last  I  learned  to  look  for  his 
tail  and  then  I  could  find  him.  But  alas !  one 
day  I  could  not  find  his  tail.  Neither  did  I  find 
him.  The  sad  truth  was  apparent.  Sphinx  had 
run  away.  I  had  not  thought  such  baseness  pos- 
sible in  so  solemn  a  creature,  always  standing  in 
one  position,  with  his  head  in  the  air,  deep  in  med- 
itation. But  I  never  saw  him  again  alive.  How- 
ever, several  days  after  his  disappearance,  I  picked 
up  a  jar  of  water  that  contained  some  pond-snails. 
The  inside  of  the  jar  was  coated  with  green,  and  I 
did  not  at  first  notice  something  of  the  same  color 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  water.  But  I  soon  saw 
it.  It  was  poor  Sphinx.  He  had  tumbled  into 
the  water  and  drowned.  I  helped  his  corpse  out 
of  the  water  but  he  never  revived. 

What  a  disreputable  set  some  of  these  flowers 
along  the  fields  are !     For  instance,  take  the  but- 


WHIRLIGIGS.  97 

tercups.  Have  not  they  reason  to  hang  their 
heads  in  shame  when  they  remember  how  nearly 
they  are  related  to  the  clematis  that  the  English 
call  Beggar's  Herb.  This  plant  has  leaves  that,  if 
applied  long  to  the  skin,  will  make  sores,  and  beg- 
gars are  said  sometimes  to  use  the  leaves  for  this 
purpose  in  order  to  draw  forth  people's  compas- 
sion and  money. 

And  Thistle  over  there  is  no  better,  for  do  not 
his  folk  make  such  "  thistleries  "  in  Paraguay  that 
robbers  can  hide  among  them  and  attack  unwary 
travellers?  And  was  not  Thistle  anciently  sacred 
to  that  disreputable  heathen  god,  Thor  ?  Did  not 
thistle-blossoms  get  their  color  from  the  lightning? 
I  am  afraid  Thistle  is  hardly  respectable. 

And  as  for  Mustard,  his  very  name  is  his  dis- 
grace, for  does  it  not  show  that  the  ancient  Ro- 
mans mixed  mustard  with  their  sweet  wine,  or 
"  mustum."  I  fear  that  Mustard  has  been  pres- 
ent at  many  an  orgy.  Such  disgrace  is  hardly 
atoned  for  by  the  fact  that  the  ground  mustard 
that  Mrs.  Clements  sent  King  George  I.  pleased 
that  grumpy  soul  and  caused  his  English  subjects 
to  approve  of  the  yellow  stuff. 

White  Yarrow,  there,  is  hardly  more  decent, 
for  are  not  his  folks  used  in  Sweden  in  making 
beer?  And  if  you  come  to  his  other  name,  AcMl- 
lea.  did  not  Achilles  kill  Memnon,  and  does  not 
.said  Memnon's  mother,  Eos,  weep  for  her  son 
every  morning,  and  so  form  the  dew  ?  If  you  do 


98  UP  AND   DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

not  believe  that,  come  here  some  morning,  and 
look  in  the  grass  below  Ackillea  and  see  if  the 
tears  of  Eos  do  not  lie  there,  at  the  murderer's 
feet.  When  I  reflect  on  all  the  disgraceful  his- 
tories of  these  flowers  and  their  relatives  I  hardly 
feel  like  noticing  them  as  I  pass  by. 

As  for  the  blue  lupines  that  adorn  the  sides  of 
the  road  on  the  hill  yonder,  they  remind  one  of 
the  dreadful  mistake  said  to  have  been  made  by 
the  Germans  at  one  time.  For  these  lupines  be- 
long to  the  Leguminosce,  the  same  family  that 
contains  the  "  sweet "  and  "  everlasting  "  peas  that 
blossom  in  pink  and  white  and  blue  in  our  gar- 
dens. And  it  is  written,  —  though  whether  in 
tradition  or  in  history  I  know  not,  — -  that  some 
Germans  at  one  time  thought  that  sweet -pea 
seeds  would  make  good  eating.  So  the  seeds 
were  ground  and  mixed  with  flour,  and  indeed 
fine  bread  was  made  from  it.  The  Germans 
thought  that  they  had  discovered  a  wonderful 
way  of  proceeding,  but  after  a  while  those  who 
continually  ate  the  sweet-pea  bread  began  to  find 
their  limbs  and  joints  becoming  mysteriously 
stiff.  They  grew  worse  and  worse,  and,  by  and 
by,  the  poisonous  bread  made  the  people  cripples 
for  life. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Some  people  had  fed  pigs  on 
such  meal,  and  it  is  said  that  the  pigs,  too,  lost 
the  use  of  their  limbs  entirely,  and  fell  flat  on  the 
ground.  Here  was  a  sad  state  of  affairs.  Ex- 


WHIRLIGIGS.  99 

periments  are  dangerous  things.  So  thought  the 
German  government,  and  it  sent  out  an  order 
that  no  one  should  use  any  more  of  the  poison- 
ous sweet-pea  bread.  Such  are  the  associations 
connected  with  the  lupines. 

Still,  there  are  those  less  depraved  among  these 
flowers,  and  the  blackberries  by  the  cliff  may  re- 
mind us  that  their  relatives,  the  strawberries,  have 
comforted  many  a  bereaved  German  mother  in 
olden  times.  For  when  the  people  of  Germany 
were  heathen  and  worshipped  the  goddess  Frigga, 
there  was  a  belief  among  her  devotees  that  on 
one  day  of  each  year  Frigga,  the  invisible,  went 
strawberry  ing,  and  when,  afterward,  she  left  the 
earth  with  her  rosy  load,  she  divided  her  berries 
among  all  the  little  children  that  had  ever  died. 
And,  so  firmly  was  this  believed  in  Germany,  that 
on  Frigga's  strawberrying  day,  no  mother  whose 
little  child  was  dead  would  ever  eat  any  strawber- 
ries, for,  if  she  did,  her  little  child  would  not  re- 
ceive any  when  Frigga  divided  her  berries  among 
the  children  in  Paradise. 

It  is  a  heathen  superstition,  and  yet  who  can 
tell  how  many  mothers'  hearts  may  have  been  com- 
forted at  the  thought  that  by  denying  themselves 
they  could  add  a  little  to  the  happiness  of  those 
they  so  sorely  missed  ?  And  perhaps  there  are 
some  of  us  nowadays  who  might  be  benefited  by 
the  truth  at  the  heart  of  the  old  superstition.  For 
there  is  a  truth  here,  and  it  is  this.  There  are 


100  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

sacrifices  that  we  may  still  make  for  our  holy 
dead.  We  may  take  up  their  work  upon  the 
earth.  And  to  every  one  who  does  this  comes  the 
comfort  of  the  knowledge  that  heaven  and  earth 
are  not  so  far  apart,  after  all. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR    ILK. 

"Nay,  good  my  lord,  be  not  afraid." 

King  Richard  III. 

"  THERE  are  lots  of  Water-lizards  over  in  the 
canon  in  the  other  creek.  They  're  red.  I  go 
over  there  sometimes,  and  may  be  I  '11  bring  you 
some." 

This  is  the  substance  of  a  generous-sounding 
speech  made  to  me  by  a  lad,  but  his  promise  was 
never  fulfilled.  The  brook  and  I  heard  it,  but 
the  brook  was  better  than  the  boy.  Either  be- 
fore or  after  this,  I  drew  my  first  Water-lizard 
from  these  shallows. 

A  yellowish  beastie  he  was,  about  two  and 
three  fourths  inches  long,  with  a  black  line  run- 
ning down  the  middle  length  of  each  side.  His 
'tail  was  flattened  and  spotted  with  black.  He 
had  both  anterior  and  posterior  pairs  of  feet,  the 
forward  pair  being  four-toed,  and  the  hinder  pair 
five-toed.  Dark  eyes  were  his,  and  there  were 
three  pairs  of  reddish-yellow  gills.  These  were 
very  noticeable,  standing  up  like  feathers  on  either 
side  of  his  head  just  in  front  of  his  legs.  These 
gills  gave  him  a  very  peculiar  look,  reminding  one 


102  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

somewhat  of  the  ruffs  that  ladies  wore  in  olden 
times.  The  pair  of  gills  nearest  his  head  stood 
upright  or  nearly  so. 

I  tried  to  suit  the  poor  fellow  in  regard  to 
food,  for  I  put  into  his  jar  a  few  water-shrimps, 
a  small  dragon-fly  larva,  a  little  red  water- worm, 
an  earth-worm,  and  a  small  scorpion-bug,  but,  al- 
though I  do  not  know  what  better  fare  he  could 
have  found  under  the  weeds  from  which  I  took 
him,  my  viands  were  all  thrown  away  on  him. 
He  would  have  none  of  them.  I  think  he  ate 
nothing  while  he  lived  with  me.  He  seemed  to 
be  very  much  alarmed  whenever  I  came  to  visit 
him,  and  would  race  around  the  jar  in  terror, 
or  look  at  me  through  the  glass  with  suspicious 
eyes. 

And  then,  alas  !  after  he  had  sojourned  with 
me  for  nine  days,  I  came  to  his  jar  to  find  him 
lying  on  his  back.  He  was  dead,  poor  prisoner, 
and  I  kept  him  a  long  time  afterward  in  a  bottle 
of  alcohol.  But  I  regretted  that  I  had  not  given 
him  a  larger  dish  and  a  place  where  he  could 
have  come  out  of  the  water  if  he  so  desired. 

What  is  there  about  the  lizard-shape  that  gives 
one  a  feeling  of  dislike  ?  The  creatures  are  often 
pretty  in  coloring,  intelligent  of  eye,  and  yet  one 
shrinks  from  them,  whether  in  water  or  on  land, 
whether  of  the  salamander  or  of  the  lizard  fam- 
ily. The  matter  of  likes  and  dislikes  is  a  curious 
one.  Frogs  are  not  so  very  far  removed  from 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  103 

the  lizard  shape,  and  yet  with  how  much  more 
of  respect  do  we  look  at  a  frog.  And  a  fat  old 
grandfatherly  toad  that  lived  in  a  hole  in  our 
garden  once  commanded  my  childish  interest, 
almost  affection.  But  a  lizard !  No  matter  if 
Wallace  does  tell  us  that,  on  the  Ke  Islands,  he 
found  swarms  of  little  green  lizards  with  tails  of 
the  "  most  heavenly  blue,"  no  amount  of  coloring 
can  make  a  lizard  very  acceptable. 

On  the  hill  away  beyond  those  eucalyptus-trees, 
a  party  of  us  one  May  Day  had  an  adventure  with 
a  lizard.  The  creature  had  a  very  long  tail.  One 
of  the  boys  tried,  with  a  lad's  usual  kindness,  to 
stamp  on  the  lizard,  when,  lo !  it  threw  off  the 
tail  and  ran  for  dear  life. 

But  the  tail !  It  went  rushing  around,  looking 
like  a  little  snake.  Perhaps  the  tail  was  trying 
to  run  after  the  lizard.  At  all  events  our  party 
left  looking  after  the  lizard  to  see  what  his  lively 
remnant  would  do.  No  one  dared  touch  the 
wriggling  thing,  until  a  sturdy  carpenter  snatched 
it  up.  He  bequeathed  it  to  me,  and  I  put  it  in 
my  handkerchief,  but  before  I  had  walked  the 
half  mile  home  the  lizard's  memento  was  quite 
still.  Having  a  number  of  Whirligig  beetles  at 
the  time,  I  gave  them  an  opportunity  to  taste  of 
lizard's  flesh,  but  they  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  Whirligigs  have  likes  and  dislikes,  after 
the  fashion  of  human  beings. 

The  Water  -  lizards  described  as  living  in  the 


104  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

other  brook  haunted   me  for  many  a  day,  till,  at 

last,  going  forth 
once  in  April,  a 
friend  and  I  made 
the  pilgrimage  of 

Trito  several  miles  and 

received  our  due 

reward.  I  would  advise  all  goers  after  Water- 
lizards  to  avoid  taking  a  dog  with  them,  espe- 
cially a  frisky  dog.  Such  a  one,  black,  with  the 
merriest  eyes  I  ever  saw  on  a  dog,  met  us  and  in- 
sisted on  tagging.  He  was  certain  we  were  going 
to  do  something  that  he  was  interested  in,  and  he 
invited  himself  with  as  much  assurance  as  one 
would  think  those  old  Grecian  dogs  might  have 
attained  to  in  the  days  when  polished  Hellenes, 
sending  notes  of  invitation  to  their  friends,  were 
wont  to  be  courteous  to  the  friends'  dogs,  also,  and 
request  that  they  might  be  brought  along. 

This  dog  had  been  taking  a  bath  in  some  pool, 
as  his  coat  showed,  and  so  enamored  was  he  of 
the  water  still,  that  he  rushed  at  the  little  way- 
side stream,  plunging  in  with  a  vigor  that  would 
have  made  dredging  useless,  if  it  had  been  at- 
tempted. He  came  once  to  pat  his  paw  down 
where  I  was  striving  to  find  some  inhabitant  in 
the  mud. 

Fortunately  that  dog  was  left  behind  before 
the  brook  was  reached,  otherwise  the  Water-liz- 
ards might  not  have  been  caught.  The  water 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  105 

under  a  bridge  was  quite  transparent,  and  on 
turning  over  stones,  two  of  the  creatures  came  in 
sight.  No  more  were  to  be  found.  Probably 
these  had  taken  a  morning  stroll  among  those 
stones,  and  so  were  caught.  Gentle  creatures 
they  seemed  to  be,  not  much  frightened  even 
when  the  dredger  scooped  them  up  singly  as  they 
were  found,  and  they  came  out  of  the  water,  the 
drops  falling  from  the  yellow  and  gray  of  their 
skins. 

Before  leaving  the  brook,  on  vines  or  weeds  be- 
side it  I  found  a  number  of  the  pupaB  of  Frog- 
hoppers.      Spots    of  white    froth  look- 
ing like   soap-suds  were  all  that  could 
be  seen,  but  penetrating  a  white  mass 
I  found  a  little  insect  looking  somewhat 
like  a  small  lady-bug,  the  forward  part  One  of  my 

I&rvs6    of 

of  the  body  being  black  and  white,  and  Frog-  hop  - 
the  abdomen  red.  Orachat  de  Coucou  1"  en~ 


the  French  peasants  call  such  spots  of 
froth,  and  in  England  they  are  known  as  Cuckoo's 
spittle,  or  Ecume  Printaniere,  —  spring  froth. 
That  the  cuckoo  should  be  credited  with  such  an 
overflow  of  saliva  is  a  mystery  only  equalled  by 
the  fact  that  other  credulous  people  assert  the 
toad  to  be  the  owner  of  the  "  spittle." 

The  Frog-hopper  Iarva3  that  I  took  home  were 
of  varying  sizes,  one  being  about  an  eighth  of 
an  inch  long,  others  a  little  larger.  In  my  zeal 
fpT  Water-lizards  I  neglected  these  larvae,  till  the, 


106  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

spittle  of  most  of  them  was  gone.  Then  I  en- 
deavored to  give  the  creatures  a  new  supply  of 
fluid  by  putting  cuttings  of  plants  into  their 
bottle.  But  honeysuckle  and  rose,  chick-weed 
and  lily  slips  had  not  the  right  taste.  No  weed  I 
could  find  suited  them,  the  kind  on  which  I  found 
them  not  growing  here,  and  one  by  one  my  Frog- 
hoppers  miserably  perished,  without  having  been 
able  to  produce  arty  more  froth.  "The  larva  of 
the  ApJiropJiora  cannot  live  long  out  of  its  frothy 
envelope,"  says  Figuier.  My  last  one  died  five 
days  I  believe  after  I  picked  the  weeds  the  larvae 
were  on,  but  the  dabs  of  froth  lasted  during  the 
first  day  or  two,  so  that  the  larvaB  were  not  dry 
all  of  that  time. 

However,  on  another  day,  beside  that  brook 
I  found  a  mass  of  foam  on  a  blackberry  shoot, 
and,  breaking  it  off,  brought  it  home.  The 
Frog-hopper  larva  inside  that  mass  proved  to  be 
larger  than  any  of  those  I  had  previously  found. 
He  was  dark,  almost  black,  with  a  few  light 
marks. 

Calling  to  mind  De  Geer's  experiment  with  a 
similar  larva  which  he  compelled  to  make  new 
froth,  I  resolved  to  imitate  him.  I  drew  my 
larva  out  of  his  bubbly  world  and  tried  to  wipe 
him  dry.  De  Geer  thought  that  the  froth  serves 
to  protect  such  creatures  from  the  heat  of  the  sun 
and  from  attacks  by  spiders  and  other  carnivorous 
creatures.  The  froth  serves,  too,  I  think,  as  a 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  107 

sort  of  drowning-place  for  other  little  insects,  as  I 
found  a  small  winged  creature,  perhaps  a  winged 
aphis,  dead  in  the  froth. 

I  had  obtained  for  my  larva  a  shoot  of  what 
I  supposed  was  a  cultivated  blackberry,  for  I 
thought  that  he  would  not  know  the  difference 
between  the  taste  of  that  and  the  taste  of  the  wild 
variety.  My  supposed  blackberry  shoot,  how- 
ever, was  finally  discovered  to  be  a  raspberry 
one.  After  I  had  wiped  the  froth  from  him  as 
well  as  I  could,  so  that,  while  not  being  exactly 
dry,  he  had  not  much  moisture  on  him,  he  tum- 
bled into  the  cup  of  water  in  which  I  had  placed 
the  shoot  to  keep  it  fresh.  He  descended  to  the 
bottom  of  the  cup,  but  my  rescuing  finger  was 
after  him,  and  he  clutched  it  and  was  saved. 
However,  I  did  not  wipe  him  dry  after  his  invol- 
untary plunge. 

I  put  him  on  the  shoot  and  he  speedily  began 
work.  With  the  constant  bending  of  the  hinder 
portion  of  the  abdomen,  little  bubble  after  little 
bubble  collected  under  him.  Within  nine  or  ten 
minutes  he  had  quite  a  number,  enough  to  make 
a  small  mountain  of  froth.  Still  the  whole  upper 
surface  of  his  body  was  uncovered. 

In  twenty-five  minutes  from  the  time  of  start- 
ing, the  froth  had  mounted  so  high  that  it  began 
to  touch  his  back.  Some  of  the  time  he  kept  his 
head  down  to  the  "  blackberry  "  shoot,  as  though 
he  might  be  drawing  in  juice,  as  these  creatures 


108  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

do  through  their  beaks.  At  other  times  he 
raised  his  head  above  the  shoot,  but  the  hinder 
part  of  his  body  was  continually  elevated  above 
the  fore  part,  so  as  to  give  him  the  appearance  of 
being  just  ready  to  turn  a  somersault. 

I  thought  that  he  was  succeeding  finely,  but, 
about  three  quarters  of  an  hour  after  he  first 
entered  into  the  business  of  making  this  batch  of 
foam,  the  Frog-hopper  larva  left  the  place  alto- 
gether and  wandered  to  the  end  of  the  shoot, 
where  were  some  leaves.  He  still  retained  some 
moisture  on  the  under  part  of  his  body,  but  why 
should  he  waste  the  bubbles  he  had  been  mak- 
ing ?  There  they  were,  a  pile  of  froth,  waiting 
for  him  while  he  crawled  over  the  leaves.  I 
picked  him  up  and  put  him  back  in  his  place, 
but  he  would  not  stay  there.  Away  he  went 
toward  the  leaves  again. 

I  put  him  back  a  second  time,  and  again  he 
fell  into  the  water.  This  second  bath  sobered 
him,  I  think,  for  he  recommenced  work.  Per- 
haps the  reason  why  he  left  his  froth  was  that  he 
remembered  that  he  had  not  explored  the  shoot, 
and,  inasmuch  as  he  did  not  expect  to  make  any 
more  journeys  after  the  froth  had  once  closed 
over  his  head,  he  thought  he  would  stop  work  and 
travel  a  little.  This  was  what  I  thought  at  first. 
But  after  he  had  made  another  pile  of  froth 
about  as  big  as  the  former  one,  he  again  left  it 
and  wandered  off. 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  109 

The  truth  dawned  upon  me.  That  fellow  was 
smarter  than  I  had  thought.  He  did  know  the 
difference  between  the  cultivated  raspberry  and 
the  wild  kind  of  blackberry.  He  did  not  like  the 
raspberry.  Hoping  that  he  would  not  oblige  me 
to  journey  to  the  brook  for  his  food,  I  gave  him 
a  shoot  of  wild  blackberry  that  I  had  kept  in  a 
pail  for  the  needs  of  any  of  my  menagerie. 

Frog-hopper  did  not  like  the  looks  of  my  pres- 
ent. He  had  never  been  taught  the  polite  truth 
embodied  in  the  maxim  that  one  should  not  look 
a  gift-horse  in  the  mouth.  That  part  of  Frog- 
hopper's  education  had  been  neglected.  He 
looked  over  my  shoot  but  did  not  offer  to  make 
any  froth.  It  was  quite  apparent  that  the  shoot 
was  not  fresh  enough  to  suit  him,  and  he  was 
waiting  to  have  a  better  one  appear.  Overawed 
by  his  wisdom  in  regard  to  blackberry  shoots,  I 
put  on  my  hat,  snatched  the  scissors,  hastened  to 
the  creek,  swung  myself  under  a  fence,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  proximity  of  a  number  of  boys,  se- 
cured my  fresh  wild-blackberry  shoots,  and  came 
home. 

That  was  exactly  what  Frog -hopper  wanted, 
and,  after  considerable  delay,  he  proceeded  to 
bury  himself  in  foam,  and  succeeded  so  well  that 
at  about  half -past  nine  P.  M.,  when  I  gave  him  a 
farewell  look  for  the  night,  all  that  could  be  dis- 
tinctly seen  of  him  was  a  little  black  dot,  a  por- 
tion of  the  hinder  end  of  the  body.  All  the  rest 
was  covered  in  the  foam. 


110  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Still  it  would  manifestly  be  impossible  to  bring 
up  such  a  larva  on  a  shoot.  This  was  shown  next 
day  when  the  branch,  although  propped  by  pieces 
of  coal  in  the  water,  would  not  stand  up  securely, 
and  Frog-hopper's  mass  of  foam  hung  down  so 
that  it  would  not  cover  his  back.  He  became 
disgusted  and  again  went  on  his  travels.  So  I 
journeyed  to  the  brook  and  dug  up  a  couple  of 
scrawny  little  blackberries,  planted  them  at  home, 
conveyed  Frog-hopper  to  the  spot,  put  him  on  a 
leaf ,  and  tied  a  cloth  around  that  branch  to  make 
sure  that  I  should  see  him  again.  I  furthermore 
tasted  both  the  cultivated  raspberry  and  the  wild 
blackberry,  and  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  a  difference  in  the  flavor  of  the  sap.  The  wild 
blackberry  is  more  pleasant.  I  did  not  wonder 
that  Frog-hopper  knew  that  I  had  not  given  him 
the  right  thing  at  first.  There  is  not  much  use 
trying  to  fool  a  bug.  He  is  generally  smarter 
than  he  looks. 

I  untied  the  cloth  next  day.  Frog-hopper  was 
there,  but  he  was  without  any  froth.  Disgusted 
with  his  tribe,  I  bundled  him  into  a  tin,  took  him 
to  the  brook,  put  him  on  a  leaf  of  a  blackberry 
vine,  and  gave  him  my  parting  blessing.  Such 
bugs  are  nuisances. 

"  Flea  -  grasshoppers,"  Sauterelles  -  Puces,  does 
Swammerdam  call  these  Frog-hoppers,  because  the 
adults  jump  like  fleas.  And  one  European  kind, 
prone  to  live  on  fern-stalks  and  thistles,  has  the 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  Ill 

complimentary  title  of  "  le  Petit  Diable."  But  I 
fear  these  Frog-hoppers  are  to  be  classed  among 
the  injurious  insects.  It  is  very  well  for  them  to 
attack  weeds  by  a  brook,  but  the  Frog-hoppers 
need  not  pretend  that  they  never  visit  anything 
else.  And  many  such  creatures  on  cultivated 
plants  would  kill  them,  as  the  people  of  the 
Basses-Alpes  could  testify.  For  does  not  a  Frog- 
hopper,  Jassus  devastatans,  make  bold  to  hop 
on  their  young  corn  and  lay  waste  their  cereals  ? 
Frog-hoppers  are  certainly  bad  creatures,  not  wor- 
thy of  our  further  consideration.  Let  us  turn 
from  them  to  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 

The  first  morning  after  I  caught  the  Water- 
lizards,  I  thought  one  had  escaped,  for  I  went 
to  the  dish  and  found  but  one  in  the  water. 
Further  search,  however,  discovered  Number  Two 
snugly  hidden  in  the  cloth  that  I  had  tied  around 
the  dish  the  night  before.  He  received  the  re- 
ward of  his  wanderings  in  being  obliged  to  hang 
by  one  of  his  hind  feet  till  I  could  cut  a  thread  of 
the  cloth  that  had  become  wound  around  one  of 
his  legs.  His  tiny  little  hand  looked  almost  hu- 
man as  I  held  him  during  the  operation. 

This  adventure  did  not  deter  him  from  going 
again  and  again  into  the  cloth.  I  suppose  he  slept 
there  sometimes  nights.  It  became  *ny  custom  to 
run  my  hand  around  the  dish  mornings  before  un- 
tying the  cloth,  and  I  often  felt  his  body  lying 
somewhere  beneath.  It  gave  me  the  sensation  of 


112  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

a  corpse  under  a  grave-cloth.  He  did  not  attempt 
to  run,  but  would  wait  for  me  to  untie  the  cloth 
and  take  him  up  ignominiously  by  the  tail  and 
put  him  in  the  water.  I  have  an  idea  that  some- 
times I  put  him  in  sooner  than  he  liked. 

The  other  Water-lizard  was  hot  quite  so  bold. 
I  took  her  to  be  a  lady.  She  was  given  to  hiding 
under  the  stones  1  put  in  the  dish,  and  but  seldom 
did  she  ascend  to  hide  in  the  cloth.  Occasionally, 
however,  I  found  both  there,  and  put  them  back 
in  their  watery  home. 

Darby  and  Joan  were  the  names  of  my  friends. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  tell  when  Darby  had  been 
spending  some  time  out  of  water.  His  coat  above 
would  be  of  a  dark  color  that  would  last  nearly 
all  day,  even  when  he  stayed  in  the  water,  and  it 
would  be  late  in  the  afternoon  before  he  would  be 
of  the  same  color  as  Joan,  a  sort  of  grayish  yellow. 
Both  were  brighter  yellow  beneath,  and  neither 
had  gills.  Their  eyes  had  a  greenish  color,  and 
the  creatures  were  four-toed  in  front  and  five-toed 
behind.  Their  heads  were  much  like  those  of 
frogs,  noticeably  so  as  I  would  sit  looking  at  the 
dish  and  see  Darby's  head  come  rising  up  to  the 
margin.  Seeing  110  body,  one  would  certainly 
have  said  that  a  frog  was  coming.  Darby  was 
six  and  a  half  inches  long,  for  I  measured  him  one 
day.  It  was  easy  enough  to  control  him,  and  hold 
him  in  place  by  his  tail  while  measuring  him.  I 
do  not  think  that  he  admired  the  performance, 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND   THEIR  ILK.  113 

although  he  never  seemed  to  dare  to  refuse  to  do 
what  I  required  him  to.  Yet  he  strove  to  free 
himself,  and  was  probably  glad  when  I  let  go. 
Joan  was  shorter,  being  barely  six  inches  long. 
Every  little  while  these  two  would  lift  their  heads 
suddenly  up  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  or  above 
it,  as  if  to  snap  up  something,  and  immediately 
a  bubble  or  two  of  air  would  appear  on  the  sur- 
face. 

Thirteen  days  after  Darby  and  Joan  first  en- 
tered my  dish,  a  girl  came  to  see  me.  She  is  one 
of  the  few  persons  of  my  acquaintance  who  are 
interested  in  "  bugs,"  and  she  had  come  in  to  ex- 
patiate on  the  beauty  of  a  dragon-fly  larva  of  hers 
that  had  just  taken  off  its  skin,  and  presented  a 
beautiful,  velvety  appearance.  From  dragon-flies 
the  talk  whisked  to  the  small  tortricid  moths  that, 
as  caterpillars,  curl  the  leaves  of  rose-bushes,  and 
I  invited  her  into  the  back  yard  to  see  if  any  more 
of  my  tortricid  pupae  had  opened. 

While  there  I  was  reminded  of  my  Water-liz- 
ards, and  proceeded  with  some  enthusiasm  to  un- 
tie the  cloth  in  order  to  show  Darby  and  Joan  to 
the  visitor's  admiring  gaze.  Off  came  the  cloth. 
Nothing  was  to  be  seen  of  Darby  and  Joan,  but 
that  was  not  strange,  since  they  were  given  to 
hiding  themselves  under  the  grass.  So  I  pulled 
it  aside  and  took  out  some  of  the  stones.  The 
polliwogs  wriggled  blissfully,  but  no  Darby  and 
Joan  appeared. 


114  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

"  I  guess  they  're  in  the  cloth,"  I  said,  with  an 
uneasy  foreboding  of  evil. 

I  shook  the  rag. 

Alas,  alas ! 

The  truth  was  apparent.  Darby  and  Joan  had 
run  away. 

How  they  had  managed  it  was  a  mystery.  I 
had  tied  the  cloth  on  as  usual.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
little  loose,  and  it  may  be  that  by  great  struggles 
those  creatures,  almost  as  pliable  as  slugs,  slipped 
through  and  fled. 

The  girl  went  away  almost  immediately,  and  I 
rushed  back  to  the  dish.  Away  went  the  box  of 
bottles  and  tins  of  insects,  up  came  the  heavy 
boards ;  into  every  crack  and  cranny  among  the 
sweet  alyssum  did  we  look,  but  a  dried  Darby  or 
a  parched  Joan  appeared  not. 

I  am  quite  certain  that  Joan  never  planned 
that  escape.  She  need  not  come  back  to  apolo- 
gize. I  exonerate  her  entirely.  She  was  of  too 
meek  a  nature  to  propose  such  a  thing,  or  else  she 
was  a  tremendous  hypocrite.  I  know  well  enough 
that  it  was  Darby  the  daring  that  found  the  way 
out  and  persuaded  her  to  follow,  but,  inasmuch  as 
there  was  no  water  in  the  open  world  to  which  he 
invited  her,  I  very  much  fear  that  Joan's  fidelity 
was  rewarded  by  a  dry  death. 

Still,  I  am  glad  to  have  become  acquainted, 
though  so  briefly,  with  Water-lizards.  It  is  some- 
thing to  have  even  seen  an  animal,  as  poor  Paolo 


WATER-LIZARDS  AND    THEIR  ILK.  115 

Uccello  might  testify  from  his  own  mistake.  Alas, 
poor  man  !  Being  at  work  decorating  the  arch  of 
the  Peruzzi,  he  placed  in  the  rectangular  sections 
in  the  corners  one  of  the  four  elements  accom- 
panied by  some  appropriate  animal ;  to  the  earth 
a  mole,  to  the  water  a  fish,  to  the  fire  a  sala- 
mander, and,  since  the  old  notion  was  that  a  cha- 
meleon lived  on  air,  he  was  to  paint  one  of  those 
creatures  in  the  right  place  for  that  element. 

But  Paolo  had  never  seen  a  chameleon,  and, 
being  deceived  by  the  similarity  of  the  names, 
what  did  he  do  but  paint  a  camel  with  wide-open 
mouth  swallowing  the  air.  "  And  herein,"  says 
Vasari,  "  was  his  simplicity  certainly  very  great ; 
taking  the  mere  resemblance  of  the  camel's  name 
as  a  sufficient  representation  of,  or  allusion  to,  an 
animal  which  is  like  a  little  dry  lizard,  while  the 
camel  is  a  great  ungainly  beast." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MINOR   MUD   AND   WATER   FOLK. 

"  By  being"  seldom  seen,  I  could  not  stir 
But  like  a  comet  I  was  wondered  at." 

King  Henri/'  IV \ 

A  WHILE  ago  I  heard  of  a  heroic  act  of  self- 
sacrifice.  A  neighbor  of  mine,  a  good -hearted 
youth,  is  an  enthusiast  about  bugs.  He  is  also  a 
member  of  that  institution  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  Salvation  Army. 

One  evening,  when  he  with  some  other  mem- 
bers was  holding  a  street-meeting,  and  was  just 
in  the  act  of  kneeling  for  prayer,  the  eyes  of  this 
person  fell  on  a  bug,  or  beetle.  Perhaps  it  was 
an  emissary  of  Satan  to  tempt  my  neighbor,  but 
at  all  events  it  was  a  new  bug  to  him.  He  could 
not  have  helped  seeing  the  insect  in  the  light  on 
the  street,  but  it  was  an  awkward  moment  for 
such  a  discovery.  Should  he  seize  that  bug,  or 
remain  in  a  reverent  attitude  ? 

Devoutness  conquered,  and  the  bug  escaped. 
Perhaps  a  scorner  of  bugs  might  think  this  a 
trivial  act  of  self-denial,  but  a  bug-hunter  could 
have  given  no  better  proof  of  religious  earnest- 
ness. 


MINOR  MUD   AND    WATER  FOLK.  117 

"  Do  you  really  think  they  're  alive  ?  "  said 
the  same  person  to  me,  when  I  met  him  on  the 
hill  one  day  and  offered  him  my  jar  for  inspec- 
tion. 

I  had  been  making  a  call  on  the  Mud  Folk. 
There  are  a  good  many  of  them  beside  this 
brook.  They  are  not  wont  to  receive  my  calls 
with  enthusiasm,  neither  do  they  press  me  to 
come  again.  But  I  dig  into  their  habitations 
without  ceremony.  The  question  of  my  neighbor 
referred  to  a  long  hair-worm,  Gordius,  that  I 
had  taken  from  his  mansion  in  the  mud  and  was 
conveying  home. 

On  my  affirming  my  certain  belief  in  the  life 
of  the  creatures,  the  lad  said,  "  But  folks  say 
they  're  horse-hairs.  I  used  to  see  lots  of  them. 
They're  not  all  black;  some  are  red.  I  used  to 
think  it  was  because  they  were  different  colored 
hairs.  Did  you  ever  try  putting  horse-hairs  in 
water  and  letting  them  come  alive  ?  I  used  to 
do  it  when  I  was  a  little  fellow,  but  I  never  made 
much  of  a  success  at  it." 

I  should  think  not !  Poor  Gordius  aquations. 
Will  human  beings  never  become  tired  of  repeat- 
ing that  old  story  of  the  horse-hair  ? 

In  an  evil  hour  I  resolved  to  experiment  on 
that  Gordius.  I  was  moved  thereto  by  reading 
a  statement  in  some  book  that  certain  hair-worms 
can  be  dried  into  brittle  threads  and  yet  will  be- 
come active  on  being  moistened. 


118 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


So  I  put  my  friend  into  a  dry  bottle  and  left 
him  for  about  a  day.  He  was  then  a 
miserable  little  ball  with  no  apparent 
life,  but  I  gave  him  some  water  and 
he  was  soon  stretching  himself  in  it. 
He  was  unmistakably  alive. 

Rejoiced  at  my  success  I  allowed 
Gordius  only  a  few  minutes'  happiness. 
I  resolved  that  I  would  try  him  with  a 
longer  drying  spell.  Two  days  should 
be  the  limit  this  time ;  and  into  the 
driest  of  tin  cans  went  poor  Gordius. 
I  think  it  was  a  few  hours  over 
the  allotted  time  when  I  remembered 
my  captive.  He  was  wofully  dry,  but 
I  had  hopes  of  him  and  put  him  into 
his  bottle  of  water. 
But  it  had  been  too  much  of  an  experiment  for 
poor  Gordius.  His  body  became  plump  and 
round,  but  there  was  no  life  in  him.  Even  when 
he  had  stayed  in  the  water  over  night  and  all  the 
next  day,  he  was  motionless  and  allowed  me  to 
measure  him,  a  thing  that  he  refused  to  do  when 
alive.  He  was  about  thirteen  inches  long.  I  had 
thought  that  when  alive  he  was  considerably  over 
a  foot  in  length,  but  perhaps  his  drying  shrunk 
him. 

There  are  numbers  of  big  flies  sitting  on  that 
margin  where  the  sun  shines  so  warmly.  Are 
they  not  also  Mud  Folk?  If  St.  Macarius 


Gordius 
aquaticus. 


MINOR  MUD  AND   WATER  FOLK.  119 

lived  in  these  days,  lie  might  come  here  for  flies, 
though  they  have  never  bitten  me.  Perhaps  I 
have  never  given  them  the  opportunity  that  he 
gave  such  creatures  in  those  marshes  of  Scete 
which  contained  multitudes  of  huge  flies  "  whose 
stings  pierce  even  wild  boars."  For  the  legend 
goes  that  feeling  a  gnat  bite  him  one  day,  he,  like 
any  ordinary  mortal,  killed  the  creature.  But, 
immediately,  so  they  tell  us,  his  saintly  mind  was 
overcome  with  remorse  at  having  lost  so  good  an 
opportunity  of  mortifying  the  flesh.  With  zeal- 
ous haste  he  rushed  from  his  cell  to  the  marshes, 
and  there,  amid  the  flies,  abode  half  a  year,  and 
when  at  last  he  returned  to  his  friends  he  was  so 
disfigured  a  man  that  he  was  to  be  known  by  his 
voice  only. 

In  view  of  such  self-mortification  as  this,  it  is 
reassuring  to  ordinary  mortals  to  remember  the 
other  legend  of  St.  Bernard,  who  is  said  to  have 
become  one  day  so  annoyed  by  a  blue-bottle  fly 
that  buzzed  about  his  ears  that  he  said,  peevishly, 
"  Be  thou  excommunicated,"  and  lo  !  the  flies  of 
the  whole  district  dropped  dead. 

These  big  flies  are  not  extremely  interesting 
objects.  Nothing  about  a  fly  is,  to  my  mind.  He 
is  associated  with  too  many  unpleasant  recollec- 
tions for  me  to  rejoice  in  his  children  or  in  any 
of  his  relations.  He  is  an  insect  known  to  all 
people. 

On  a  fence  that  walks  up  a  hill  I  once  found 


120  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

in  August  a  number  of  big  Horse-flies  sitting  in 
the  sun.  I  clapped  my  tin  over  one  of  them,  but 
so  anxious  was  he  to  get  away  that  I  bruised  one 
of  his  wings  before  I  could  draw  my  handkerchief 
tightly  between  him  and  the  fence.  He  was  big 
and  black,  and  his  thorax  was  crested  with  a  stout- 
looking  brownish  shield  that  covered  him  like  a 
breast-plate  put  on  the  wrong  side.  He  buzzed 
like  a  bumble-bee  when  he  flew,  but  when  exam- 
ined he  was  seen  to  differ  in  having  no  hairy  body 
but  a  deep-black  one.  It  is  only  the  female 
Horse-flies  that  bite,  it  is  said,  the  males,  like 
those  of  the  Mosquito,  living  on  the  juices  of 
flowers.  The  insect  creation  serves  sometimes  to 
emphasize  the  opinion  of  the  ages  as  to  woman's 
temper.  I  passed  a  number  of  cows  back  on  the 
meadow,  but  the  grass  prevented  any  of  them 
from  being  thin  enough  to  represent  that  ungal- 
lant  fiction  of  the  French  mind,  the  "  Chichi* 
Vache"  or  "  sorry  cow,"  —  a  monster  that  was  said 
to  be  exceedingly  thin.  Its  diet  consisted  of 
good  women  only,  and  the  "  Chichi- Vache  "  was 
all  skin  and  bone,  because  its  food  was  so  ex- 
tremely scarce,  such  females  being  very  rare. 

When  you  raise  the  mosquito-bar  that  covers 
the  top  of  the  fly -larvae  tin,  little  black  specks 
fly  out.  These  on  being  looked  at  closely  resolve 
themselves  into  minute  flies  that  are  hardly 
bigger  than  the  small  black  ants  that  visit  the 
tin.  Small  beetles,  and,  beetle-gupse  of  the  Stapliy* 


MINOR  MUD  AND   WATER  FOLK.  121 

)  are  also  in  such  mud  beside  the  brook, 
and  earth-worms  abound.  The  little  black  bee- 
tles are  determined  not  to  be  captured,  however, 
and  even  if  you  put  half  a  dozen  in  your  tin 
and  pat  down  some  earth  over  the  mud,  up  come 
the  beetles  through  the  earth  and  straight  to  the 
top  of  the  tin  they  go. 

Perhaps  another  time  when  you  raise  the  mos- 
quito-bar of  your  tin  another  fly,  about  the  size 
of  a  small  house-fly,  stands  waiting  for  release, 
though  whether  he  came  from  the  mud  or  slipped 
under  the  mosquito-bar  from  outside  is  a  ques- 
tion. 

But  in  all  my  digging  in  the  mud  I  have 
never  found  any  swallows,  and  have  never  verified 
the  statement  that  truthful  Mr.  Harrington  made 
to  Mr.  Pepys  in  1663  that  December  day  in  the 
coffee-house,  "  Swallows  are  often  brought  up  in 
their  nets  out  of  the  mudd  from  under  water, 
hanging  together  to  some  twigg  or  other,  dead  in 
ropes,  and  brought  to  the  fire  will  come  to  life." 

Yet  I  venture  to  say  that  many  people  could 
not  tell  me  the  names  of  the  real  Mud  Folk,  and 
the  guesses  might  be  as  false  as  the  swallow- 
story  that  was  told  of  the  "  country  above  Quins- 
borough." 

Innocent  Mr.  Pepys  !  He  seems  to  have  be- 
lieved all  that  was  told  to  him.  I  am  afraid  he 
did  not  go  poking  around  in  the  mud  enough 
when  he  was  a  boy.  I  should  think  that  he  was 


122  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

the  sort  of  man  who  could  be  deceived  by  the 
imitation-insects  said  to  be  manufactured  by  de- 
ceptive bug-dealers  for  the  cheating  of  the  un- 
learned purchaser. 

Among  the  more  minute  inhabitants  of  this 
brook  are  the  entomostracans,  known  as  Water- 
fleas,  CypriS)  Cyclops,  etc.  In  a  small  puddle 
containing  two  or  three  teacupfuls  of  water  you 
will  see  swarms,  hundreds  of 
Cyprides  in  their  two-pieced 
horny  shells.  Cypris  is  ex- 
tremely lively  in  the  water, 
but  take  him  out  and  put  him 

Cypris  unifasciata.        Qn    a   glasg    slide   in    a  drop   Qf 

water  and  he  usually  keeps  those  finely-fringed 
antennae  and  feet  inside  his  shell  where  the  would- 
be  see-er  cannot  look  at 
them.  Occasionally,  how- 
ever, he  protrudes  them, 
and  whirls  around  at  a 
great  rate,  demanding  to 
be  put  back  into  the  wa- 
ter where  it  is  deep 
enough  for  him  to  swim. 

There  is   nothing  that 
will    make    the   wrinkles 
Cyclops  communis.  come    more   quickly   than 

daily  squinting  at  such  creatures  as  these.  They 
are  so  small,  and  yet  one  wants  to  see  their 
swimming  feats,  and  continually  puts  one's  eyes 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  123 

on  the  strain  to  observe  them.  And  when  you 
mix  them  with  a  number  of  the  genus  Cyclops 
there  is  perpetual  commotion.  I  once  had  a 
jelly-glass  of  water  full  of  such  creatures,  and 
in  the  time  I  kept  them  I  nearly  obtained  one  or 
two  wrinkles  in  the  middle  of  my  forehead.  Any 
one  who  wishes  to  cultivate  wrinkles  will  please 
take  notice  that  squinting  at  Water-fleas  is  the 
surest  and  quickest  way  I  have  yet  discovered. 
But  it  is  interesting  work  to  watch  the  entomos- 
tracans  through  the  glass.  The  lady  Cyclops  will 
shoot  by  bearing  two  egg-masses  nicely  balanced 
on  either  side,  and  Cyprls  with  all  his  brethren 
will  skim  around  over  the  floor  of  the  jelly-glass 
looking  at  a  glance  like  a  lot  of  little  spiders  in 
for  a  swim.  Multitudes  of  the  fossil  shells  of 
the  Cy prides  are  said  to  be  found  in  the  Wealden 
rocks  of  England,  in  the  limestone  of  the  carbo- 
niferous series,  etc.  Such  little  creatures  make 
more  marks  on  the  earth  sometimes  than  men  do, 
—  a  fact  that  is  sufficiently  humbling  to  human 
pride. 

Another  quite  lively  and  brilliant  little  crea- 
ture that  I  have  found  here  in  March  is  a  "water- 
mite,"  one  of  the  Hydrachnidce.  Bright  red  is 
this  mite,  so  much  so  that  it  looks  almost  like  an 
animated  speck  of  blood  as  it  goes  through  the 
water.  Its  color  forms  a  strange  contrast  to  the 
usual  tints  of  water  -  creatures,  which  are  com- 
monly dark,  or  yellowish  white. 


124 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


This  red  mite  has  eight  legs,  and  in  shape  is 
much  like  a  small  spider.  To  look  at  the  mite, 
one  would  hardly  think  that  it  belonged  in  the 
water,  but  it  seems  much  at  home  in  that  ele- 
ment, and  I  fear  that  when  in  the  larval  state  the 
creature  is  too  much  at  home  for  the  comfort  of 


Water-mite  Adult.  Water-mite  Larva. 

Hy drachma  geographica,  —  magnified. 

the  other  water  creatures  from  which  it  takes  its 
food.  For  some  of  the  larvaB  of  the  HydracJi- 
nidce  are  said  to  be  parasitic  on  the  gills  of  mus- 
sels, and  other  larvae  hang  on  the  Water-skater 
family,  —  the  Hydrometridce.  Ranatra  and  the 
Water-scorpions  are  also  said  to  be  bearers  of 
the  nymphs  of  these  pests.  Some  of  the  Water- 
tiger  beetles,  Dytiscidce,  are  devourers  of  the 
adult  mites,  however,  so  justice  is  sometimes 
meted  out  to  these  evil-doers.  Between  the 
leeches  and  the  water-mites,  one  might  think 
that  sometimes  the  life  of  the  bravest  bug  or 
beetle  in  the  brook  would  become  intolerable. 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  125 

You  sit  down  on  a  bank  and  think  yourself 
alone.  But  there  are  many  eyes  on  you.  You 
hear  a  rustle,  and  behold  a  little  white  frog  is 
hopping  away  from  your  feet.  Aphides  alight  on 
your  shoulder,  and  now  would  that  a  person  might 
have  as  acute  hearing  as  the  mythic  Heimdall 
had,  he  who  lived  in  the  fort  at  the  end  of  the 
rainbow,  and  had  so  fine  ears  that  he  could  hear 
"  the  wool  growing  on  the  backs  of  sheep  and  the 
grass  springing  in  the  meadows."  For,  if  we  had 
such  ears  we  might  hear  many  a  bug  and  beetle 
and  spider  in  this  supposed-uninhabited  nook  say- 
ing to  each  other,  "  Who  is  the  giant  who  has 
come  here  and  why  has  he  come?  This  part  of 
the  world  belongs  to  us.  We  are  the  Brookside 
Folk." 

And  you  reflect  that  the  spiders  and  beetles 
and  bugs  really  have  more  to  substantiate  their 
claims  than  had  those  "  Three  Tailors  "  whom 
Carlyle  mentions  as  addressing  Parliament  and 
the  Universe,  sublimely  styling  themselves,  "  We, 
the  People  of  England." 

Ants  walk  beside  our  pool  on  the  mud  near  the 
margin.  What  may  be  their  errand  there  I  do 
not  know,  for  there  are  no  live-oaks  or  willows  in 
that  particular  spot  to  attract  them.  Where  wil- 
lows grow  you  may  find  the  backs  of  the  leaves 
brown  with  aphides  that  the  ants  are  visiting. 
The  Portuguese  of  Brazil  call  the  ant  the  King 
of  that  country,  and  the  peasants  of  Cornwall  say 


126  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

that  ants  are  "  Muryans,"  or  small  people  of  the 
fairy  tribs,  "in  a  state  of  decay  from  off  the 
earth." 

Whatever  they  are,  they  boldly  intrude  into  a 
bug-keeper's  tins.  I  have,  in  feeding  my  cater- 
pillars with  leaves,  carelessly  put  in  some  that 
had  aphides  living  on  them,  and  on  looking  in 
once  I  saw  two  ants,  each  carrying  an  aphis  in 
his  mouth.  Evidently  the  ants  were  going  to 
bear  the  aphides  to  some  spot  that  in  ant-judg- 
ment was  better  adapted  for  their  cows  than  my 
tins  were.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the  ants 
could  squeeze  through  the  mosquito-bar  with  such 
burdens. 

The  black  polliwogs  come  very  near  being 
Mud  Folks  in  April.  One  will  find  the  water 
black  with  a  quivering  company  of  them  next  to 
shore,  or  directly  on  it  where  the  water  just 
covers  their  backs  from  the  sun's  rays.  1  am 
afraid  some  of  these  black  polliwogs  miscalculate 
sometimes,  or  are  thrust  by  some  cruel  fate  a  frac- 
tion of  an  inch  out  of  their  element,  for  one  can 
sometimes  see  them  above  water-line,  miserably 
waiting  till  the  sun  shall  dry  them  up  or  till 
some  kind  hand  shall  put  them  into  the  water 
again.  If  the  latter,  their  passiveness  vanishes, 
and  they  go  off  through  the  water,  shaking  them- 
selves with  happiness.  I  wonder  if,  when  those 
unlucky  Lycian  shepherds  who  mocked  Latona 
received  their  punishment  of  being  turned  into 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  127 

frogs,  it  was  decreed  that  they  should  pass  through 
the  polliwog  state  ?  That  would  have  been  too 
cruel,  to  condemn  mortals,  who  had  been  used  to 
having  feet  and  using  them  to  escape  from  dan- 
gers, to  a  footless  condition  wherein  they  would  be 
comparatively  helpless.  I  am  sure  a  tadpole  must 
feel  proud  of  his  first  pair  of  feet,  albeit  they 
are  his  hind  ones. 

Strings  of  eggs  are  toad's ;  round  eggs  are 
frog's,  say  the  books.  I  remember  finding  here, 
one  March,  a  long  string  of  double  black  dots 
enclosed  in  yellow  jelly,  and  taking  it  home  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  dots  lengthen  till  the 
polliwogs'  tails  stood  out  of  the  mass  in  all  di- 
rections. And  finally  the  whole  polliwogs  would 
slip  out  and  sink  down  through  the  water  in  a 
half -alive  way,  as  though  they  really  did  not 
know  whether  they  were  glad  to  be  in  the  world 
or  not.  They  gather  courage  after  a  time,  how- 
ever, and  conclude  that  it  is  a  fine  world,  after 
all,  and  it  is  a  blissful  thing  to  waddle  in  it. 

I  found  here  two  boys  inspecting  a  can  of 
theirs  one  afternoon.  They  were  seated  on  a 
bank,  and  their  can  contained  a  collection  of  little 
frogs,  etc. 

"  What  do  you  do  with  them  ?  "  I  queried. 

"  Have  fights  and  see  which  side  whips,"  ex- 
plained one  youngster. 

And  forthwith,  aided  by  his  companion,  he 
made  clear  to  my  comprehension  the  joyful  man- 
ner in  which  the  fight  was  to  be  conducted. 


128  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

"  The  side  that  whips  we  're  going  to  give  that 
pond,"  said  one,  pointing  to  quite  a  pool. 

"  And  what  becomes  of  the  side  that  gets 
whipped  ?  "  I  asked, 

"  You  can't  do  much  with  them,  but  throw 
them  away.  They  're  mostly  dead,  anyhow,"  was 
the  answer. 

And  then  they  explained  to  me  that  different 
kinds  of  "  bugs  "  were  on  opposite  sides  and  the 
fight  took  place  in  a  tub  of  clear  water. 

And  the  boys  solemnly  assured  me  that  "this 
kind  of  bug  "  (pointing  out  a  water-shrimp  that 
was  walking  on  the  black  mud)  attacked  the  pol- 
liwogs. 

"  Guess  they  suck  their  blood,"  said  one  boy. 

He  stated  for  a  fact  what  I  have  never  noticed 
a  shrimp  doing,  but  what  I  should  not  be  at  all 
surprised  to  see  such  a  crustacean  do,  that  one  of 
them  will  catch  hold  of  the  polliwog  by  the  throat 
and  kill  it. 

"They  don't  do  it  in  the  pond,  but  when 
they  're  shut  up  together  they  do,"  said  one  boy. 

"  It 's  fun  to  see  them  fight,"  said  another  of  the 
youngsters. 

And  having  obtained  as  many  creatures  as 
they  wanted  the  boys  ran  off. 

But  those  creatures  on  the  "  side  that  whips  " 
must  think  they  have  won  a  glorious  prize,  the 
pool  that  is  theirs  by  good  right  anyway. 

Here  may  one  find  in  March  the  larvad  of  May- 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  129 

flies  with  branchiae  on  their  sides  and  slender 
bristles  behind.  These  creatures  seem  to  have 
an  unaccountable  tendency  toward  death.  They 
appear  very  lively  as  they  skip  along  through  the 
water  after  their  pretty  fashion,  but  take  them 
home  and  try  to  keep  them  until  transformation 
and  you  will  be  likely  to  make  a  failure  with 
most  of  them.  Heartless  things  they  are,  too, 
capable  of  hustling  about  the  dead  bodies  of  their 
brethren  in  a  most  unfeeling  manner.  It  is  well 
that  death  does  not  frighten  them,  else  their  lives 
in  a  pool  would  be  full  of  terror.  If  I  were  one 
of  the  water-creatures  I  should  constantly  be  ex- 
pecting my  own  demise,  though  I  should  keep  my 
eyes  open,  not  shut,  as  did  Cosmo  de  Medici,  of 
whom  it  is  related  that,  a  short  time  before  his 
death,  his  wife  asking  why  he  kept  his  eyes  shut, 
he  replied,  "  to  get  them  in  the  way  of  it."  A 
water-insect  having  no  eye-lids  could  hardly  fol- 
low the  Italian's  example. 

Multitudes  of  mosquitoes  must  go  forth  from 
some  of  these  pools  in  the  course  of  the  summer. 
It  is  strange  that  there  is  hardly  a  bit  of  land  or 
water  that  is  not  claimed  by  some  of  the  lower 
creatures.  We  do  not  know  it,  perhaps,  but  we 
learn  it  after  a  while.  One  may  collect  insects 
in  one's  own  neighborhood  for  a  long  time,  and 
yet  may  be  astonished  at  finding  new  ones  in 
the  next  hollow.  So,  after  a  time,  one  comes  to 
believe  Charles  Kingsley's  saying,  "  He  is  a 


130  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

thoroughly  good  naturalist  who  knows  his  own 
parish  thoroughly." 

But  one  does  not  need  to  be  much  of  an  en- 
tomologist to  be  acquainted  with  the  mosquito, 
although  acquaintance  with  the  eggs  of  that  insect 
is  a  different  matter. 

The  mosquito  was  the  first  boat-builder.  Of 
that  I  am  certain. 

"  Vessels  large  may  venture  more, 
But  little  boats  should  keep  near  shore," 

says  wise  B.  Franklin.  Mrs.  Mosquito  has  prob- 
ably heard  of  that  bit  of  wisdom,  for  she  some- 
times chooses  such  very  small  puddles  in  which  to 
sail  her  boats  that  a  careless  cow,  stepping  in, 
tramples  the  puddle  out  of  existence,  much  to  the 
detriment  of  mosquito  children,  no  doubt. 

You  will  take  Mrs.  Mosquito's  boat  for  a  bit 
of  soot,  if  you  are  not  careful.  But  pick  it  up 
and  you  will  see  the  tiny  eggs  massed  together 
so  regularly,  the  whole  narrowing  toward  either 
end  according  to  boat-shape.  You  cannot  make 
such  a  boat  sink.  Put  it  into  a  bottle  and  pour 
in  water.  The  mosquito-boat  will  always  come 
up  on  top,  if  the  eggs  have  not  hatched.  Mos- 
quitoes vary  in  the  length  of  time  they  require 
ere  they  can  come  forth  to  bid  defiance  to  man- 
kind. Some  that  I  had  took  sixty-eight  days  or 
more,  I  believe,  but  those  mosquitoes  must  have 
been  quite  a  dilatory  set,  the  usual  time  being 
about  four  weeks  after  hatching.  Mine  were  a 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  131 

fall  brood,  however,  hatching  from  the  egg  Octo- 
ber 3,  as  animated  whitish  commas  with  black 
heads. 

Mosquito  infants  are  really  bright-appearing 
persons.  A  good  many  people  are  not  aware  that 
there  are  two  forms  of  these  creatures  before 
they  have  wings.  A  man  with  whom  I  once  con- 
versed, while  knowing  mosquito  "  boats "  and 
mosquito  "  wrigglers,"  was  yet  ignorant  that  there 
is  a  middle  pupa  stage  of  "  tumblers,"  as  the 
club-shaped  creatures  are  called.  The  tumblers 
are  said  not  to  eat  anything,  so  one  can  hardly 
wonder  at  the  hunger  of  the  winged  creatures 
that  come  from  them.  Well  do  I  remember 
spending  a  night  among  the  swamps  of  the  Sac- 
ramento River,  when  a  child,  and  seeing  the 
enormous  swarms  of  mosquitoes  above  the  trees, 
humming  like  a  lot  of  bees.  Wise  writers  say 
that  the  lady  mosquitoes  alone  bite,  and  that  the 
gentlemen  content  themselves  with  dwelling  in 
swamps  and  woods.  But  four  trustworthy  people 
and  two  veracious  horses  could  testify  that  there 
were  a  large  delegation  of  lady  mosquitoes  in  the 
Sacramento  swamps  that  night,  and  that  fire  and 
smoke  did  not  prevail  against  them. 

The  Flamen  Dialis,  priest  of  Jupiter,  was  an- 
ciently not  allowed  to  touch  a  trailing  vine.  The 
poison-oak  along  this  creek  seems  to  be  deter- 
mined to  enforce  the  same  rule  on  everybody  as 
far  as  these  blackberry-vines  are  concerned,  for 


132  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

the  two  plants  here  grow  together,  and  the  would- 
be  inspector  of  blackberry  leaves  has  to  be  very 
careful  lest  he  should  lay  hold  of  the  wrong  plant. 

But  if,  on  the  last  day  of  April  or  the  first  or 
second  of  May,  one  has  patience  to  edge  one's 
way  along  the  bank,  holding  to  the  fence  with 
one  hand  and  stretching  out  the  other,  grabbing 
with  judicious  care,  one  may  reach  berry-leaves 
done  up  in  a  suspicious  style.  Pick  them  and 
open  the  leaves  so  bound  together  or  folded,  and 
you  will  find  within  each  bundle  a  small  green 
worm  with  a  darker  head,  one  of  the  Tortricidce, 
or  PyralidcB)  for  I  believe  authors  differ  some- 
what in  regard  to  the  two  families.  At  all  events 
such  worms  are  destined  to  become  pretty  little 
moths  some  day. 

But,  if  you  find  the  right  leaf,  on  its  back  you 
may  have  the  delight  of  seeing  a  family  of  little 
bugs  just  hatched  and  sitting  together  on  top  of 
the  eggs  they  have  come  out  of.  I  have  found 
the  same  kind  of  eggs  on  the  back  of  a  honey- 
suckle leaf  in  my  yard.  There  are  about  fourteen 
eggs  in  a  group,  and  they  are  very  pretty,  barrel- 
shaped,  of  a  pure  white,  but  marked  with  red 
before  the  inhabitants  come  out.  Hardly  one 
sixteenth  of  an  inch  high  are  the  little  barrels, 
looking  a  little  like  the  pictures  of  the  egg-bar- 
rels of  the  Harlequin  Cabbage-bug,  Murgantia 
histrionica,  or  the  Calico-back,  but  lacking  the 
black  hoops  and  bung-holes  of  the  eggs  of  that 


MINOR  MUD  AND  WATER  FOLK.  133 

enemy  of  farmers.     But  there  are  lids  to  these 

blackberry-leaf  barrels,   or  at   least 

there  is  a  rim  around  each  top  edged 

with  little  hairs,  and  when  the  young    ~i 

bug  has  cut  its  way  out  with  a  neat-  Eggs  on  back  of 

ness  and  accuracy  that  could  not  be  blackberry  leaf, 

i  i  •        — enlarged. 

surpassed,  behold  the  "  cutest  white 
lid  in  the  world  stands  just  a  crack  open  on  top 
of  the  empty,  almost  transparently-white  "  bar- 
rel." You  can  take  a  pin  and  open  the  lid  if  you 
do  not  push  too  hard.  If  you  are  not  careful, 
though,  it  will  come  entirely  off.  There  seems 
to  be  a  sort  of  dark  projection  on  the  middle 
of  the  open  side  of  the  lid.  Perhaps  it  is  some- 
thing to  keep  the  lid  part-way  open  when  the 
young  bug  is  crawling  out.  Who  knows  ? 

The  eggs  are  placed  in  quite  regular  rows.  I 
have  found  the  fourteen  in  rows  of  the  following 
numbers :  three,  four,  four,  three.  In  another 
case  the  fourteen  were  in  this  order :  four,  four, 
four  with  the  second  one  raised  above  the  others, 
two. 

The  young  bugs  that  come  from  such  eggs  are 
of  necessity  small.     They  are  six-legged, 
with   broad    ending    antenna,   and    the 
front  half  of  each  body  is  reddish  brown, 
while  the  hinder  half  is  lighter  with  four  Littie 
brown   marks,  and    a   row  of   brownish  bug  a  day 

.  old,  —  en- 

dots  torming  an  edge  to  the  body.          larged. 

These  less  than  pin-head-size  larval  bugs  have 


184  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

brave  spirits ;  for  a  day  old  fellow  climbed  clear 
to  the  top  of  the  glass  fruit  jar  in  which  I  kept 
them,  and  if  I  had  not  had  paper  tied  over 
the  top  he  would  have  gone  forth  to  seek  his  for- 
tune. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CADDIS-WORMS. 

"  Sometimes  he  angers  me 
With  telling  me  of  the  mold  warp  and  the  ant," 
"  And  such  a  deal  of  skimble-skamble  stuff 
As  puts  me  from  my  faith." 

King  Henry  IV. 

IN  the  other  brook,  on  stones  in  the  water,  yet 
near  the  margin,  I  nave  found  small  Caddis-worms 
in  their  tubes.  Among  those  that  I  once  brought 
home  was  a  little  fellow  barely  three  eighths  of  an 
inch  long.  He  had  made  his  tiny  case  of  grains 
of  sand  and  minute  stones  very  neatly  put  to- 
gether. 

For  a  time  I  gazed  upon  him,  and  then  com- 
menced the  struggle  of  Sandy's  life.     Very  care- 
fully I  began  to  take  his  covering  to  pieces, 
intending   to   see   him   make  a  new  one. 
But  so  tenacious  were  the  materials  that  I 
only  succeeded   in  making  a  hole  in  the 


i 


hinder  portion,  leaving  a  little  of  his  body  with 

,  .      J  Caddis- 
exposed.     I  was  too  much  afraid  01  hurt-  fly  larva 

ing  him  to  go  on.  in  li' 

But  I  had  done  enough.  Sandy  knew  the  dan- 
gers of  having  holes  in  one's  clothes.  He  would 
attend  to  that  rent  immediately. 


136  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

I  handed  him  a  little  stone  ;  he  clutched  it  and 
proceeded  to  undress,  regardless  of  spectators. 
His  covering  was  a  very  tight  one,  however,  and 
it  was  very  hard  work.  I  think  he  would  proba- 
bly have  succeeded  in  his  efforts  without  my  aid, 
but  I  "  lent  a  hand,"  as  Mr.  Hale  suggests.  The 
dress  was  so  tight  around  the  neck  that  Sandy 
looked  as  if  he  were  choking.  But  at  the  end  of 
almost  half  an  hour,  Sandy  caught  hold  of  another 
caddis,  I  caught  hold  of  Sandy,  and  he  drew  him- 
self out. 

There  he  was,  a  poor,  naked,  yellow  worm  in 
the  waste  of  mighty  waters  Contained  in  a  small 
plate. 

Now  Sandy  was  in  business.  I  had  thought 
that  he  would  be  so  exhausted  he  would  lie  down 
and  rest  after  taking  off  that  garment.  But  no. 
He  was  immediately  at  work.  How  did  he  know 
but  a  fish  might  be  coming  to  swallow  him  before 
he  could  get  covered  again  ?  There  was  no  time 
to  be  lost,  in  his  opinion. 

Poor  Sandy !  How  he  did  toil  and  tug  over 
the  little  stones.  His  black,  ant-like  head  and 
yellow  body  with  its  two  terminal  hooks  went 
squirming  around  under  and  over  the  stones.  I 
did  not  understand  his  movements  at  the  time.  I 
thought  he  was  debating  whether  he  should  make 
his  new  covering  out  of  stones  or  of  sand.  I  had 
destroyed  his  former  garment  so  that  he  was 
obliged  to  make  an  entirely  new  one. 


CADDIS*  WORMS.  137 

But  I  saw  afterwards  that  what  he  had  been 
doing  was  to  anchor  himself  for  his  future  work ; 
since  subsequently,  when  he  was  making  his  new 
coat,  he  was  so  attached  to  the  larger  stones  that 
I  could  pull  him  around  by  moving  any  of  the 
half-dozen  around  him.  They  seemed  to  be  all 
connected  by  some  thread-like  substance,  and  I 
thought  it  a  very  sensible  idea  of  Sandy's,  for  it 
would  have  been  awkward  work  dress-making,  I 
suppose,  without  a  certainty  that  he  could  keep 
in  a  fixed  place. 

Being  anchored,  Sandy  worked.  It  lacked  a 
few  minutes  of  seven  hours  after  this  when  Sandy 
slipped  down  his  body  the  first  section  of  his  new 
dress.  He  had  seemingly  made  this  thin  section 
round  about  his  body  near  his  head,  and  then  he 
caught  hold  of  a  little  stone  that  I  had  pushed 
near  him,  and  with  mighty  squirmings  slipped  the 
section  down  toward  the  other  end  of  his  body. 
This  was  probably  the  "  trying-on  "  part  of  the 
dressmaking.  The  garment  was  to  be  a  "  glove- 
fit,"  without  wrinkles,  hence  Sandy's  feats  in  wrig- 
gling. 

In  making  the  section  he  seemed  to  pick  up 
the  sand-grains  and  manipulate  them ;  but  Sandy 
need  not  have  been  afraid  of  my  stealing  his  trade, 
for  though  the  operation  went  on  under  my  eyes, 
I  could  not  tell  at  all  how  it  was  done.  The  first 
section  covered  nearly  half  his  body,  exclusive  of 
his  head.  He  manipulated  a  while  longer,  and 


138  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

drew  the  section  down  further  still.  I  had  been 
thinking  that  he  had  not  drawn  it  quite  far 
enough,  for  I  was  almost  sure  I  saw  one  of  the 
hooks  at  the  end  of  his  body  peeping  out.  That 
showed  afterward,  too,  for  the  section  went  up 
near  Sandy's  head  again,  and  left  his  rear  half 
bare.  But  Sandy  knew  what  he  was  about.  He 
had  made  a  dress  before.  He  caught  hold  of 
the  stone  and  shoved  the  dress  down  his  back 
again. 

Then  I  went  to  bed  and  left  Sandy  to  his  job. 
It  was  "quite  a  chore,"  as  a  neighbor  of  mine 
says  of  other  things. 

When  I  arose  the  next  morning,  Sandy  appar- 
ently had  not  made  much  progress  in  the  length 
of  his  garment.  He  lay  on  his  back  some  of  the 
time  that  day,  and  rested  from  his  toil,  I  thought, 
but  the  next  morning  revealed  a  sad  state  of  af- 
fairs. Poor  Sandy  had  spun  his  little  life  away. 
I  brought  him  a  bit  of  grass  as  refreshment,  but 
it  was  too  late.  He  was  quite  stiff  and  dead  when 
I  tried  to  turn  him  over.  His  dress  covered 
about  two  thirds  of  his 
body,  reaching  well  toward 
his  head  on  his  back,  but  I 
Sandy's  unfinished  *>ever  had  the  opportunity 
"  chore."  of  seeing  what  was  his  in- 

tention about  unmooring  himself  from  the  larger 
stones,  when  his  dressmaking  was  done.  Perhaps 
he  had  no  such  intention. 


CADDIS-WORMS. 


139 


My  caddis  cases  varied  in  length  from  seven 
sixteenths  to  three  quarters  of  an  inch,  the  latter 
length  being  represented  by  but  one,  and  due  to 
a  projecting  stone.  One  case  that  was  a  quarter 
of  an  inch  wide  in  the  broadest  part  was  weighted 
by  seven  stones,  while  the  longest  case  was  a  mass 
of  them.  These  cases  were  closed  and  contained 
pupae.  When  the  little  sand-dressed  larvae  took 
their  walks  up  the  sides  of  the  bottle  and  on  the 
leaves,  the  creatures  reminded  me  of  small  hermit- 
crabs  peeping  out  of  their  shells.  The  Caddis- 
worms  seemed  to  have  much  the  same  lively,  im- 
pertinent natures  as  those  crabs,  too. 

Once  in  April  in  the  other  brook,  when  a  great 


Papilio  Turnus. 

yellow  Papilio  Turnus  butterfly  was   flying  up 
and  around  the  water -side,  there  was  a  bigger 


140  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Caddis-worrn  than  Sandy  had  been.  This  larger 
Caddis  was  suddenly  torn  from  the  home  of  his 
infancy.  No  more  should  he  wander  through  a 
pool  dragging  sticks  after  him.  His  home,  when 
it  was  not  a  plate,  was  to  be  a  bottle. 

This  Caddis-worm  was  about  one  inch  and  three 
eighths  long  while  in  his  case,  because  he  had 
hitched  two  small  logs  to  himself  and  insisted 
upon  dragging  them  about  with  him.  He  was  a 

lively  fellow.  Perhaps 
dragging  weights  is  a 
good  thing  for  a  Cad- 
dis-worm's constitution. 

The  bigger  Caddis^worm's      Anyway  he  appeared  so 
House  with  "logs."  healthy  that  I   thought 

he  could  endure  making  another  covering  for  him- 
self, and  not  die  in  the  operation,  either. 

So  I  took  his  garment  off  from  him  and  com- 
manded him  to  go  to  work.  I  pounded  up  some 
red  brick  and  some  white  and  blue  buttons  and 
gave  him  the  pieces,  expecting  him  to  make  a  pa- 
triotic-looking garment. 

It  was  about  a  quarter  of  two  P.  M.  when  this 
worm  began  dress-making,  and  his  house  was  fin- 
ished by  the  next  morning.  It  was  evidently 
hard  work  and  he  was  inclined  to  keep  pretty  still 
the  next  day,  instead  of  trotting  around  the  dish 
as  he  had  done  before  a  new  dress  was  demanded. 
In  making  this  dress  he  did  indeed  attach  to  him- 
self a  piece  of  red  brick  and  one  each  of  white 


CADDIS-WORMS.  14i 

and  blue  buttons,  but  his  immediate  covering  was 
mostly  of  sand,  and  on  his  bosom  he  had  fastened 
quite  a  sprig  of  green  grass.  I  had  laid  that 
grass  before  him,  thinking  that  perhaps  he  might 
like  a  bite  during  his  exhausting  labors.  But  E 
Pluribus  Unum  had  Hibernian  tendencies,  evi- 
dently, and  believed  in  the  "  wearin'  of  the  green." 
He  reversed  his  position,  however,  so  that  he  af- 
terward wore  the  grass  at  the  other  end  of  his  gar- 
ment. 

I  had  thought  that  he  was  going  to  prosper 
finely  after  his  dress-making,  but  two  or  three 
days  afterward  I  came  to  his  bottle  and  found 
him  dead.  The  cause  was  overwork,  undoubtedly, 
and  no  matter  how  vigorous  a  Caddis-worm  may 
seem,  I  do  not  think  that  I  shall  ever  impose  such 
labor  on  one  again.  Dress-making  is  evidently  a 
great  exhaustion  of  the  vital  forces  of  a  Caddis- 
worm,  and  I  felt  guilty  as  I  reflected  that  I  had 
murdered  two  of  the  inoffensive  beings. 

In  some  places  in  that  brook  there  are  so  many 
short,  pebble-covered  caddis  cases  on  the  stones 
that  the  gazer  is  irresistibly  reminded  of  the  little 
barnacles  seen  in  such  numbers  on  the  rocks  by 
the  sea. 

I  brought  home  one  Caddis-worm  that  was  cer- 
tainly an  ingenious  fellow.  I  marvelled  at  his 
style  of  architecture.  It  was  somewhat  the  same 
that  children  use  in  building  "  houses  "  of  clothes- 
pins. The  little  sticks  stuck  out  in  all  directions, 


142  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

and  the  gifted  inhabitant  of  the  structure  looked 
very  queer,  hugging  the  stalks  of 
grass  on  which  he  was  wont  to  hang 
in  the  bottle.  He  must  have  had  to 
hold  on  tightly,  with  all  those  sticks 
A  triumph  of  weighing  him  down.  Still,  he  some- 
architecture,  times  hung  perpendicularly  suspended 
by  his  legs.  He  could  manage  his  house  pretty 
well,  and  often  made  it  stand  out  in  different  di- 
rections to  suit  him  as  he  climbed.  I  should  not 
have  had  the  heart  to  take  to  pieces  his  house.  It 
represented  too  much  labor. 

The  little  sand-covered  Caddis-worms  were  quite 
given  to  hanging  from  the  grass.  I  remember 
seeing  one  "  shin  down  "  a  slender  stem,  until 
losing  hold,  either  intentionally  or  not,  he  floated 
swiftly  and  gently  down  to  the  bottom.  I  do  not 
know  how  any  naturalist  could  see  one  of  these 
little  beings  weaving  so  deftly  its  sandy  dress,  and 
not  recognize  the  existence  of  the  Infinite  Kindli- 
ness that  watches  over  even  the  meanest  creatures 
and  provides  them  with  means  of  protecting  them- 
selves against  the  little  bruises  that  must  be  so 
great  to  them.  I  do  not  know  whether  Job  ever 
saw  a  Caddis-worm,  but  I  think  that  the  man  of 
the  land  of  Uz  never  gave  his  friends  truer  or 
more  beautiful  advice  than  when  he  said  to  them : 
"  But  ask  now  the  beasts,  and  they  shall  teach 
thee ;  and  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  they  shall  tell 
thee : 


CADDIS-WORMS.  143 

"  Or  speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee  : 
and  the  fishes  of  the  sea  shall  declare  unto  thee. 

"  Who  knoweth  not  in  all  these  that  the  hand 
of  the  Lord  hath  wrought  this  ?  " 

Open  some  of  the  barnacle-like,  stone-covered 
little  caddis  cases  that  stud  the  stones  and  you 
will  find  the  pupa3.  One  that  I  examined  was 
about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  long  and  showed  very 
plainly  the  black  eyes  of  the  coming  Caddis-fly. 

These  flies  should  remain  about  two  weeks  in 
a  pupa  state^  I  believe.  Perhaps  the  water  in  a 
glass  bottle  may  not  be  fresh  enough  for  the 
pupa3.  At  least  I  have  never  been  able  to  keep 
my  caddis  pupa3  in  them  until  transformation. 
The  pupa3  seem  to  die,  and  a  slight  mould,  such 
as  one  observes  gather  on  all  dead  insects  under 
water,  forms  on  the  caddis  cases. 


CHAPTER   X. 

MY   CORYDALUS. 

"Mislike  me  not." 

Merchant  of  Venice, 

CORYDALIS  or  Coryda^s  ?  Authorities  differ. 
Let  us  "  follow  our  leader,"  Packard,  and  say 
Corydalws,  despite  the  array  of  Tenney,  Duncan, 
and  Wood  in  favor  of  "  is." 

Never  mind  how  Corydalus  spells  his  name. 
He  is  an  evil  beast. 

I  well  remember  the  day  when  my  first  and 
only  larva  of  Corydalus  was  found  in  the  further 
creek.  I  have  cause  to  remember  it,  for  did  I 
not  find  some  caterpillars  dwelling  in  closed  net- 
tle-leaves, and  did  I  not  sting  myself  most  unmer- 
cifully in  taking  possession  of  my  findings  and 
pulling  up  part  of  the  nettle  to  carry  home  ? 

Did  you  ever  prick  your  hands  beautifully  with 
nettles,  and  then  wash  in  a  brook  underneath 
willows  ?  Ah,  that  is  a  sensation  !  One  hardly 
wonders  that  in  olden  times  people  used  nettles 
for  striking  paralyzed  limbs,  hoping  to  bring  feel- 
ing back  into  them.  What  callous  hands  the  old 
Germans  must  have  had  in  those  days  when  they 
made  the  cloth  called  "  Nessel-tuch  "  f  rom  nettles. 


MY  CORYDALU8.  145 

What  is  the  reason  insects  care  so  much  for 
prickly  things?  To  be  sure,  it  is  very  well  for 
them  to  do  so,  as  the  prickly  plants  are  often 
those  that  are  called  "  weeds  "  by  men,  and  that 
are  considered  obnoxious.  Surely  it  is  better  that 
caterpillars  should  feed  on  them  than  on  culti- 
vated crops.  Still,  one  cannot  but  reflect  that 
there  are  many  weeds  that  do  not  have  spines, 
and  one  wishes  that  caterpillars  would  be  satisfied 
with  them.  But  the  bug-hunter  must  not  capture 
caterpillars  unless  he  expects  to  get  them  their 
usual  food. 

Yet,  when  one  possesses  a  caterpillar  that  de- 
sires to  make  a  repast  on  spiny  thistles,  one  is  apt 
to  have  a  slight  bond  of  sympathy  with  that  his- 
toric gentleman  mentioned  by  Mother  Goose  :  — 

"  Simple  Simon  went  to  look 
If  plums  grew  on  a  thistle ; 
He  pricked  his  fingers  very  much, 
Which  made  poor  Simon  whistle." 

When  a  person  is  bringing  up  a  number  of  cat- 
erpillars that  feed  on  nettles,  with  a  family  of 
bugs  that  demand  blackberry  leaves,  that  person's 
fingers  are  likely  to  pass  into  a  state  of  prick  al- 
most unendurable.  I  know  whereof  I  speak,  for 
have  I  not  gone  with  blistered  finger-ends  to  feed 
my  unsatiated  caterpillars  more  nettles?  It  is 
cheering,  when  in  such  a  plight,  to  remember  that 
old  writers  used  to  recommend  stinging  with  net- 
tles "  to  let  out  melancholy." 


146  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

From  this,  the  observant  reader  will  perceive 
that  I  have  never  yet  learned  to  grasp  nettles 
firmly  enough,  a  lesson  inculcated  in  the  old 
rhyme  written  by  Aaron  Hill  in  1750  on  that  win- 
dow in  Scotland. 

"  Tender-handed  stroke  a  Nettle, 

And  it  stings  you  for  your  pains. 
Grasp  it  like  a  man  of  mettle, 

And  it  soft  as  silk  remains. 
JT  is  the  same  with  common  natures, 

Use  'em  kindly,  they  rebel ; 
But  be  rough  as  nutmeg-graters, 

And  the  rogues  obey  you  well.' ' 

That  day  I  overheard  a  cry  from  my  compan- 
ion and  rushed  to  the  rescue.  There  in  the  shal- 
low stream,  doing  his  very  best  to  get  away,  was 
a  full-grown  larva  of  Corydalus.  He  was  popped 
into  the  bottle  without  ceremony  and  brought 
home.  In  appearance  Corydalus  was  no  beauty. 
I  presume  he  would  have  frightened  some  people 
out  of  their  wits.  But  I  was  overjoyed  to  see 
him,  for  he  was  the  only  one  of  his  kind  I  had 
ever  beheld  outside  of  a  book. 

He  was  about  two  inches  long,  had  a  black 
head  with  nippers,  six  legs  in  front,  and  eight 
respiratory  filaments  standing  out  from  either  side 
of  his  body  and  making  themselves  so  conspicu- 
ous that  an  impertinent  little  Caddis-worm  that 
wore  a  dress  of  sand  caught  hold  of  one  of  them. 
I  presume  Caddis  pinched,  for  Corydalus  turned 
around  on  him  with  the  same  quick  motion  that 


MY  CORYDALUS. 


147 


you  see  in  a  cat  or  dog  suddenly  bitten  by  a  flea. 
Caddis  held  on  impudently  till  Corydalus  had 
several  times  turned  on 
him  in  wrath.  Then  I 
interfered,  and  Cory- 
dalus took  Caddis  in 
his  nippers,  but  the 
pinching  rascal  retreat- 
ed into  his  case  and  was 
safe  from  well-deserved 
vengeance. 

Corydalus  was 
"  pudgicky."  He  took 
it  as  an  insult  if  I  man- 
aged to  touch  him,  and 
he  climbed  recklessly 
around,  disdaining  the 
gift  I  made  him  of  an 
«earth-worm.  Corydalus 
despised  me  ;  nay  more, 
he  hated  me.  He  would 
have  none  of  my  favors. 
Was  I  not  his  jailer  ? 

J  Larva  of  Horned  Corydalus. 

I  gave  him  a  little 

mortar  for  a  pond  and  set  it  inside  a  flower-pot  of 
soft  earth,  so  that  he  might  climb  out  of  the  water 
if  he  so  desired,  for  I  thought  from  his  size  he 
must  be  near  the  time  of  his  transformation. 

The  pot  was  too  full  of  earth,  and  Corydalus  in 
his  customary  defiant  way  plunged  headlong  off 


148  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

into  the  air  and  was  hurled  down  the  precipice  to 
the  table.  Such  adventures  merely  agreed  with 
Corydalus'  temperament.  I  fancy  that  he  passed 
the  whole  of  his  life  in  that  sort  of  defiant  humor 
that  sometimes  makes  a  foolish  human  being  re- 
ject the  comfort  of  his  fireside  and  rush  out  into 
the  storm,  rejoicing  in  whirlwinds  and  pouring 
rain,  merely  because  they  furnish  something  to 
combat,  and  the  very  force  exerted  in  battling 
with  the  elements  serves  to  quiet  the  tempest 
within  the  one  who  uses  the  force. 

I  took  out  a  portion  of  the  earth  and  lowered 
the  mortar,  replanting  the  grass  around  it.  Cory- 
dalus speedily  came  out,  and,  after  some  hesita- 
tion and  going  back  to  the  water,  established 
himself  in  the  darkness  and  dirt  under  his  lake. 
He  was  evidently  no  longer  to  inhabit  the  water, 
and  the  poor  earth-worm  might  rejoice,  for  Cory- 
dalus would  never  eat  him. 

I  looked  in  on  Corydalus  several  times.  The 
last  time  he  was  so  indignant  that  he  plunged 
deeper  into  the  earth  and  I  let  it  fall  in  so  that  he 
was  buried  from  sight  in  the  flower-pot.  I  care- 
fully kept  the  hole  closed  in  the  bottom  of  the 
pot,  however,  for  I  did  not  want  him  to  escape 
that  way.  He  burrowed  under  the  earth,  as  Rabbi 
Simeon  declared  the  just  do.  That  truthful  rabbi 
asserted  that  for  those  righteous  persons  who  were 
buried  outside  the  land  of  Canaan  there  should 
be  caverns  made  beneath  the  earth,  by  which  the 


MY  CORYDALUS.  149 

just  might  work  their  way  till  they  came  within 
the  sacred  limits  of  the  land  of  Israel. 

Truly  a  wonderful  amount  of  burrowing  goes 
on  underneath  our  feet,  but  the  burrowers  are 
far  from  being  those  persons  of  whom  the  rabbi 
dreamed.  Neither  should  I  apply  the  epithet 
"  just "  to  Corydalus.  His  appearance  was  against 
him. 

The  rabbins  say  that  the  names  of  the  angels 
were  first  learned  by  the  Jews  during  their  captiv- 
ity. But  Corydalus,  during  his,  had  no  desire  to 
learn  the  name  of  even  the  person  who  attended 
him.  Perhaps  he  did  not  look  upon  me  as  an 
angel.  Very  likely  he  did  not.  And  he  would 
not  have  flattered  me  by  insinuating  that  I  was 
one,  if  he  did  not  think  so.  He  was  not  that 
kind  of  a  person.  Still  I  was  happy  to  have 
found  him.  It  is  not  on  every  journey  to  that 
far-away  brook  that  one  can  find  such  a  treasure. 
Do  not  I  remember  walking  there  one  morning 
and  being  so  frightened  by  a  dog  and  a  cow  that 
I  fled  homeward  bearing  with  me  but  a  few  mis- 
erable caterpillars  and  a  larvel  Frog -hopper? 
How  much  happier  was  the  journey  during  which 
Corydalus  was  found. 

In  the  other  brook  one  May  morning  I  found 
floating  dead  an  enormous  Mole-cricket,  one  of 
the  creatures  called  by  the  French  "  Courtilidres," 
from  the  old  French  word  courtille,  "  garden."  I 
once  kept  a  Mole-cricket  in  a  bottle  for  quite  a 


150  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

time,  He  used  to  ascend  to  the  top  of  his  hole 
occasionally  in  the  twilight,  but  he  was  a  timid 
young  fellow,  and  never  became  acquainted  with 
me. 

It  is  hard  to  wait  for  such  a  creature  as  Cory- 
dalus.  He  disappears  in  the  earth,  it  falls  over 
his  much-branched  body,  and  you  see  him  no 
more.  Days  go  by,  fifteen,  sixteen,  twenty  of 
them.  You  grow  nervous.  You  wonder  what  he 
is  doing  in  the  lower  regions  of  that  flower-pot. 
You  feel  possessed  to  dig  down  and  see  him. 
You  know  exactly  how  the  little  boy  feels  when 
he  has  planted  his  first  seed  and  longs  to  dig  it 
up  and  see  if  it  has  begun  to  grow.  You  hunt 
up  Corydalus  in  books,  and  you  find  Hagen  say- 
ing: "The  reason  that  the  larva  of  Corydalus  has 
both  branchiae  and  spiracles  is,  that  it  lives,  like 
Sialis,  some  weeks  out  of  the  water  before  its 
transformation." 

You  heave  a  sigh  and  shut  the  book.  The 
gloomy  thought  oppresses  you  that  perhaps  Cory- 
dalus has  not  transformed  into  anything.  Per- 
haps he  looks  just  as  he  did  when  he  last  saw  the 
light.  It  is  very  discouraging,  but  you  remember 
what  damage  was  done  to  the  Water-tiger  larva 
by  digging  down  to  see  him,  and  you  bide  your 
time,  or  Corydalus'  time,  rather.  You  console 
yourself  by  reflecting  that  at  least  Corydalus  did 
not  require  you  to  dig  his  hole  for  him.  A  box- 
ful of  these  creatures  would  be  much  like  that 


MY  COR  YD AL US. 


151 


monastery   of    the    Catacombs   on    the    Dnieper 
where   some   of    the   ascetics    are   said   to   have 


Horned  Corydalus. 

bricked  themselves  up  alive    in  the  cells   which 
were  to  become  their  sepulchres.     But  Corydalus 


152      UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

is  wiser  than  the  saints.  He  intends  to  come  out 
some  day  while  he  is  yet  alive. 

On  the  twenty-second  day  after  Corydalus  was 
found  I  looked  into  the  flower-pot  and  was  as- 
tonished to  perceive  him  sitting  on  top  of  the 
earth.  But,  alas  !  how  changed  he  was  in  ap- 
pearance. His  body  had  shortened  and  he  was 
altogether  discouraged-looking.  All  his  fire  and 
wrath  had  left  him.  I  poked  him,  but  he  did 
not  resist.  Poor  Corydalus !  His  days  were  evi- 
dently numbered.  There  was  no  prospect  of  his 
ever  coming  out  as  a  winged  creature  with  a 
couple  of  savage-looking  mandibles  in  front.  He 
could  not  even  become  a  pupa. 

He  evidently  came  up  on  top  of  the  earth  to 
die.  He  did  die,  and  as  he  lay  on  the  bottom  of 
the  jelly-glass  in  which  I  placed  him,  he  had  con- 
tracted so  much  that  he  looked  like  a  dead  larva 
of  one  of  the  Dytiscidce.  He  was  hardly  an  inch 
long  and  his  side-appendages  did  not  show  much 
for  they  were  drawn  up  against  his  body,  and  in 
this  respect  the  resemblance  was  more  perfect. 

I  kept  him  in  the  glass  a  number  of  days  to 
see  if  any  internal  parasite  that  might  have  been 
preying  on  him  would  come  forth.  The  wicked 
Ichneumon-flies  are  said  to  prey  even  on  Caddis- 
worms,  and  I  do  not  know  why  Corydalus  might 
not  have  been  attacked  some  time  when  he  chose 
to  walk  out  of  the  water.  But  no  parasite  ap- 
peared, and  I  was  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  account 
for  his  decease. 


MY  CORYDALUS. 


153 


Still,  it  must  require   much  strength  to  pass 
through  the  transformation-period,  and  perhaps 
Corydalus  was   not  so  strong  and 
healthy    as   he    appeared   when   I 
brought  him  from  the  brook. 

I  think  that  if  Corydalus  could 
have  chosen  his  epitaph  it  would 
have  been  that  inscribed  over  the 
grand  master  of  Alcantara,  "  Here 
lies  one  who  never  knew  fear." 

And  though  Charles  V.,  when 
he  knew  of  the  epitaph,  remarked 
to  one  of  his  courtiers  that  "  the 
good  knight  could  never  have  tried 
to  snuff  a  candle  with  his  fingers," 
yet  I  hope  that  no  aspersions  will 
be  cast  on  Corydalus  by  any  one  Pupacof^Mrf alus 
who  may  chance  to  hear  of  this 
second  use  of  the  epitaph.  For  although  Cory- 
dalus may  sometimes  have  had  some  fear  of  some- 
thing, yet  he  never  betrayed  such  emotion  to  me 
during  my  short  acquaintance  with  him.  And  if, 
in  leaving  him,  I  should  still  reiterate  my  state- 
ment that  he  is  an  evil  beast,  yet,  in  doing  so, 
I  would  follow  the  advice  given  by  Silvius  to 
Pho3be,  • — 

"  Say  that  you  love  me  not,  but  say  not  so 
In  bitterness." 


CHAPTER  XL 

COMPANIONS   OF   MY   SOLITUDE. 

"  And  every  cat  and  dog, 
And  little  mouse,  every  unworthy  thing, 

may  look  on  her." 

Romeo  and  Juliet. 

LET  me  warn  the  guileless  person  who  has  never 
sought  for  water-livers.  Unless  you  mean  to  be 
a  "  bug-hunter  "  all  your  days,  never,  never  take  a 
dredger  in  your  hand  and  go  forth  to  dredge.  For 
the  one  who  does  that  becomes  fascinated.  There 
will  always  be  some  pool  unexplored,  some  still 
pond  that  hides  —  who  knows  what  ?  —  in  its 
depths.  How  can  one  stop  when  the  next  lift  of 
the  dredger  may  bring  to  light  some  insect-form 
that  one  has  never  seen,  but  has  read  of,  or  found 
pictured  in  books  ?  The  mysterious  is  always 
fascinating,  and  an  unexplored  pond  is  felicity 
indeed  to  an  entranced  dredger.  Occasionally 
one  starts  up  and  says,  as  the  last  beetle  drops 
into  the  bottle,  "  Oh,  I  must  be  going  home,"  and 
then  the  baleful  glitter  of  a  still  pool  under  a 
willow-tree  meets  the  eye,  and  one's  resolution  is 
forgotten.  If  Narcissus  had  known  what  crea- 
tures infinitely  more  interesting  than  himself 
dwelt  below  the  flood,  he  might  not  have  wasted 
so  much  time  gazing  at  his  own  reflection. 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  155 

Still,  there  are  drawbacks  to  one's  felicity.  I 
passed  by  a  small  house  not  long  ago.  A  little 
scrap  of  a  boy  stood  at  the  back  gate,  and,  as  I 
vanished  down  the  road,  these  words  were  wafted 
to  mine  ears,  "There's  the  lady  that  catches 
fish." 

I  am  consoled,  however,  by  the  appellation, 
"  lady."  Let  all  fish-women  be  hereafter  known 
as  "  fish-ladies."  To  such  a  pass  has  come  our 
English  tongue. 

Let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the  brook.    But  — 

"  Missis,"  says  a  baby  voice,  and  a  little  boy 
with  a  blue  apron  on  looks  through  the  fence. 

"What  is  it?"  I  answer,  knowing  well  what 
is  coming. 

"  What  you  catching  ?  " 

And,  with  a  patience  born  of  long  endurance, 
I  answer,  "  Water-beetles." 

"  Fish  for  sale.  Three  for  a  nickel,"  remarks 
a  youngster  to  his  friend,  as  he  perceives  me 
passing  the  oak-tree  he  is  trying  to  climb. 

"  Missis,  here  's  a  bug,"  shouts  a  deceptive 
youth  from  the  shade  of  a  locust-tree. 

But  I  am  not  to  be  deceived  into  going  after 
that  mythical  "  bug,"  for  I  know  the  "  ways  that 
are  dark  and  tricks  that  are  vain  "  of  California 
boys,  and  the  unbelieving  smile  with  which  I  look 
at  the  group  convinces  that  youth  that  the  bril- 
liant joke  is  fully  understood  by  "  missis." 

"  Them 's  my  weeds,"  squealed  a  little  skip- 


156  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

ping  girl  in  the  distance,  as  she  once  saw  me  turn 
aside  from  the  beaten  path  to  look  at  some  weeds 
by  the  road  where  I  thought  caterpillars  might 
possibly  be  hiding. 

She  meant  it  in  fun,  just  to  amuse  her  compan- 
ions, for  the  weeds  were  not  hers,  by  any  means. 
And  the  children  really  had  kindly  hearts  toward 
the  bug-catcher,  for  it  was  either  the  claimer  of  the 
weeds  or  one  of  her  companions  who  ran  across 
the  road,  a  few  days  later,  as  she  saw  me  going 
.  by,  and  cried,  "  Missis,  if  I  get  tins  of  the  red 
snakes,  do  you  like  them  ?  " 

On  inquiry  I  thought  from  her  description  of 
"  these  red  snakes  that  come  out  of  the  ground  " 
that  they  were  simply  earth  -  worms,  so  I  was 
doubtful  about  accepting  the  offer ;  but  she  went 
on,  "  I  had  two  tins  of  bugs  saved  up  for  you  a 
while  ago,  but  you  never  came  by,  and  so  I  threw 
them  away." 

And  this  was  the  little  girl  that  I  thought 
sneered  at  bug-catching  !  Bless  her  kindly  little 
heart ! 

Most  children's  talk  about  bugs  comes  from 
curiosity  or  a  love  of  fun,  while  some  remarks 
made  by  older  people  seem  to  me  to  arise  from 
stupidity. 

I  remember  once  having  visited  a  brook.  It 
was  neither  the  "  other  brook  "  nor  this  one,  but 
a  third,  a  number  of  miles  from  here.  I  had 
never  before  been  there  collecting,  and  I  found 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  157 

beside  the  stream  a  kind  of  plant  with  a  number 
of  caterpillars  feeding  on  it.  Both  caterpillars 
and  plant  were  alike  unknown  to  me,  so  I  caught 
some  of  the  almost  full-grown  worms,  and  pulled 
up  some  branches  of  the  plants  to  take  home 
with  me  for  food  for  my  captives. 

I  concealed  the  caterpillars  in  a  box,  but  the 
long  branches  of  the  plant  were  not  so  easily 
hidden.  However,  the  plant  was  a  very  common- 
place-looking one,  there  being  nothing  about  it 
to  excite  any  one's  curiosity.  But  it  is  ever  my 
doom  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  inquisitive. 
I  suppose  that  bug-hunters  generally  meet  such 
questioners,  but  I  hardly  expected  to  be  accosted 
on  a  city  street  beside  a  railroad  track. 

I  had  taken  the  dummy  and  horse-car  back  to 
the  city,  and  I  stood  near  the  station  waiting  for 
my  train,  when  I  was  approached  by  a  woman 
whom  I  am  not  aware  of  ever  having  seen  be- 
fore, and  whom  I  hope  never  to  meet  again. 

"  What  is  that  you  have  there  ?  "  asked  she, 
looking  at  my  branches. 

"  I  don't  know  what  it  is.  Some  kind  of  weed," 
I  answered. 

"  You  ought  to  know  what  you  're  getting," 
responded  the  woman,  calmly  picking  a  good- 
sized  leaf  from  my  bundle,  and  holding  the  crum- 
pled-up  green  thing  to  her  nose. 

"  It  is  n't  anything,  is  it  ?  "  she  went  on. 

"Why,  I  suppose  it  is  something,"  I  answered, 
"  but  I  don't  know  the  name." 


158  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

The  woman  looked  at  me. 

"  Oh,  you  just  picked  it  to  have  something 
green  in  your  hand,"  she  said. 

And,  perceiving  that  I  had  an  inquisitive  idiot 
to  deal  with,  I  made  no  answer.  But  I  remarked 
inwardly  afterwards  that  I  had  no  idea  of  finding 
anything  quite  so  green  as  that  woman. 

Truly,  as  the  Havamal  of  the  Elder  Edda 
saith, 

"  A  better  burden 
No  man  bears  on  the  way 
Than  much  good  sense.' ' 

One  September  day  I  came  to  this  brook  dredg- 
ing as  usual,  and  found  a  fat  woman  and  three  in- 
fants. They  were  informed  that  I  was  catching 
water-beetles,  since  they  labored  under  the  sur- 
prising delusion  that  it  was  fish  I  longed  for. 

"  Water-beetles,"  said  the  fat  woman  with  an 
air  of  wisdom  ;  "  they  're  the  things  that  they 
put  on  a  hook  to  catch  fish  with." 

No  doubt  she  thought  that  my  fishing  was  to 
come.  I  was  merely  securing  bait.  I  have  be- 
come certain  that  there  is  one  bit  of  wisdom  that 
all  possess.  There  is  no  one  who  is  not  acquainted 
with  it.  It  is  this :  Fish  live  in  brooks. 

The  general  impression  that  the  actions  of  vis- 
itors give  to  a  bug-hunter  when  beside  the  brook 
is  that  they  are  inwardly  repeating  to  themselves 
the  sentence  addressed  by  Jaques  to  Orlando,  "  I 
was  seeking  for  a  fool  when  I  found  you." 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  159 

And  the  bug-hunter  wishes  that  it  were  but 
proper  to  respond  in  the  words  of  Orlando,  "  He 
is  drowned  in  the  brook :  look  but  in  and  you 
shall  see  him." 

Still,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  curious  gazer 
would  then  take  the  hint  and  have  sense  enough 
to  understand  the  bug-hunter's  meaning  and  to 
respond  as  Jaques,  "  There  shall  I  see  mine  own 
figure." 

Perhaps,  if  a  bug-hunter  could  get  enough 
courage,  it  might  be  better  to  say  boldly  with 
Jaques,  "  I  thank  you  for  your  company,  but  I 
had  as  lief  been  myself  alone." 

Once  in  a  while  here  one  hears  a  soft  sound  on 
the  bank  above,  and,  turning,  sees  a  red  cow  peer- 
ing down  among  the  grass  as  if  to  mildly  inquire 
what  is  going  on.  But  the  cow  never  makes  any 
critical  remarks.  That  is  the  best  of  her.  She 
takes  it  for  granted  that  the  rest  of  the  world  are 
employed  in  sensible  business  like  herself.  She 
and  her  kin,  with  that  white  goat  that  occasionally 
looms  between  me  and  the  sky,  appearing,  as  I 
look  up  this  little  precipice,  like  a  moving  day- 
constellation,  a  second  Capricornus,  are  almost 
the  only  right-minded  people  that  I  have  ever  met 
when  dredging.  The  goat  is  fascinating.  Did  I 
not  in  my  youth  have  so  violent  an  admiration 
for  that  animal  that  a  certain  article  of  apparel 
was  commonly  designated  in  our  house  by  the 
humiliating  title  of  "  the  goat-dress,"  inasmuch  as 


160  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

I  was  expected  to  don  that  costume  every  time  I 
went  out  to  play  with  Billy?  Said  Billy's  per- 
fume being  so  strong  as  to  infect  any  article  of 
clothing  worn  near  him. 

What  mattered  it  if  playful  Guillermo  did 
knock  me  down  and  with  his  horns  nearly  punch 
the  breath  out  of  me  ?  Did  I  not  take  revenge 
on  him  by  drawing  his  picture  one  day  when  he 
stood  cowed  beneath  a  pelting  rain,  body  drawn 
together,  and  whole  aspect  denoting  misery  ?  And 
has  not  that  picture  of  his  disgrace  survived  until 
this  day  ?  Happy  are  my  memories  of  that  other 
little  goat  that  learned  to  play  "  teeter  "  with  me. 

There  must  be  to  many  right-thinking  children 
one  mystery  about  a  goat.  It  is  this.  How  can 
he  keep  his  beard  looking  so  smooth,  without  any 
comb?  Whereas  the  child  who  plays  with  him 
comes  in  from  the  fray  with  tangled  locks  a'flying. 

The  ancient  Celts  and  Cymry  had  their  expla- 
nation ready.  If  there  is  anything  that  modern 
civilization  cannot  answer,  all  one  has  to  do  is  to 
turn  to  the  simple  folk  of  old,  and  they  are  almost 
certain  to  have  a  satisfactory  explanation  ready. 
It  was  the  saying  of  those  ancient  people  that, 
every  Friday  night,  the  fairies  made  the  round 
and  combed  the  goats'  beards  to  make  them  decent 
for  Sunday.  Truly  the  Jcleine  volk  must  have  a 
hard  time  of  it  if  they  keep  up  that  custom  stilL 
They  must  be  heartily  glad  when  Saturday  morn- 
ing dawns  and  the  job  is  over. 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  161 

Poor  things,  they  have  had  a  hard  time  ever 
since  the  first.  For  the  Sclavonic  nations  say 
that  the  origin  of  elves  was  sorrowful  enough. 
The  first  man,  they  say,  had  thirty  sons  and  thirty 
daughters,  but,  being  ashamed  of  the  number  of 
girls,  he  answered,  when  asked  the  number  of  his 
children,  "  Thirty  boys  and  twenty-seven  girls." 

And,  in  punishment  for  his  falsehood,  three  of 
the  most  beautiful  of  the  girls  were  taken  from 
him  and  changed  into  elves.  Good  creatures  they 
were,  and  they  must  retain  much  patience  even 
until  now,  if  during  all  these  years  they  have 
been  barbers  to  the  goats.  What  an  unhappy 
trade  is  that !  But  perhaps  it  belongs  to  the 
Celtic  fairies  only. 

But  there  are  a  few  other  people  who  greet 
dredgers  with  silent  respect.  There  are  some  in- 
dustrious hens  who  visit  here  at  times.  They  be- 
lieve with  all  their  hearts  in  dredging,  for  they 
get  many  a  meal  among  these  water-weeds. 

I  met  a  rooster  here,  too,  one  afternoon.  He 
was  quite  tall;  at  least  his  shape  gave  one  that 
impression,  and  in  this  respect  he  reminded  me  of 
Mahomet's  cock.  For  believers  in  the  Prophet 
will  remember  that  he  was  said  to  have  found  in 
the  first  heaven  a  cock  of  so  great  size  that  its 
crest  touched  the  second  heaven,  and  it  is  the 
crowing  of  this  creature  that  awakes  all  the  ani- 
mal creation  on  earth  except  man.  Therefore  say 
the  Moslem  wise  men,  "  Allah  lends  a  willing  ear 


162  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

to  him  who  reads  the  Koran,  to  him  who  prays 
for  pardon,  and  to  the  cock  whose  chant  is  divine 
melody."  So  near  together  are  the  Koran  and 
this  brook.  Art  and  this  brook's  visitors  might 
claim  some  kin,  too,  for  would  not  these  hens  be 
interested  in  knowing  that  Gaddo  Gaddi  at  Flor- 
ence employed  himself  in  making  small  pictures 
in  mosaic  of  egg-shells,  "  finished  with  incredible 
industry  and  patience  "  ? 

If  men  were  not  so  stupidly  deaf  as  not  to 
hear  the  crowing  of  Mahomet's  cock,  perhaps  the 
officer  called  the  "  King's  Cock-Grower  "  would 
never  have  existed,  and  so  one  prince  of  the 
House  of  Hanover  would  have  escaped  being  star- 
tled. For  it  is  written  that  formerly  during  Lent 
the  King's  Cock-Grower  crowed  the  hour  every 
night  within  the  confines  of  the  palace, -and  so,  on 
the  first  Ash  Wednesday  after  the  new  House 
came  to  the  throne,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  after- 
ward George  II.,  was  astonished,  before  his  worthy 
chaplain  had  said  grace  at  supper,  by  an  officer 
suddenly  entering  and  crowing  the  words  "  Past 
ten  o'clock." 

And  Prince  George  in  his  wrath,  not  under- 
standing English,  concluded  that  he  was  being 
insulted  and  rose  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  the 
House  of  Brunswick,  and  had  it  not  been  for 
humble  explanations,  he  would  probably  have  fin- 
ished the  career  of  the  man  who  tried  to  be  a  cock. 

I  think  the  rooster  at  the  brook  would  enjoy 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  163 

that  story.  I  wisli  I  could  tell  it  to  him.  He  ad- 
dressed a  confidential  communication  to  me  when 
I  met  him.  It  was  not  a  crow,  but  a  sort  of  re- 
mark, and  I  much  wished  to  understand  it. 

The  red  cow  and  her  neighboring  relatives  are 
helpers  of  beetles,  did  they  but  know  it,  for  in 
their  droppings  numerous  black  scavenger-beetles 
find  refuge,  and,  on  that  road  yonder,  underneath 
such  spots,  perhaps  one  may  find  in  early  spring 
the  beautifully  marked  dark-brown-and-white  lar- 
vae of  those  nimble  ground-beetles  known  as  the 
Garabidce.  One  must  seize  such  larvae  quickly,  or 
they  will  retreat  into  their  holes.  Thirteen  divi- 
sions mark  the  bodies  of  these  larvaa,  and  to  carry 
so  many  parts  there  are  six  legs  and  a  sort  of 
stumpy,  white  false  leg  as  a  prop  at  the  end  of 
the  abdomen.  The  head  looks  something  like 
that  of  the  larva  of  the  Water-tiger,  being  armed 
with  mandibles,  while  the  posterior  end  of  the 
body  finishes  with  two  long  hooks.  Very  eager 
are  these  larva?,  when  caught,  to  get  away  and 
make  for  themselves  new  holes  in  some  clod  of 
earth. 

Very  few  beetles  or  beetle-larvae  like  to  be  han- 
dled, and  for  that  reason  I  could  never  more  than 
half  believe  that  tale  told  of  the  artist,  Buonamico 
Buffalmacco.  I  cannot  see  how  he  could  find 
beetles  that  would  submit  to  being  treated  in  the 
way  the  tale  says  his  did.  He  must  have  been  a 
boy  very  patient  in  doing  mischief. 


164  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

For  the  story  goes  that  he,  being  when  a  lad 
compelled  by  his  master,  Andrea  Tafi,  to  rise  and 
paint  in  the  night,  devised  a  scheme  to  terrify  Tafi 
into  allowing  him  to  sleep  till  morning.  Buffal- 
macco  obtained  a  number  of  beetles,  and  fastened 
little  tapers  to  their  backs.  During  the  night  he 
lighted  the  tapers  and  sent  the  beetles  through  a 
hole  into  his  master's  room. 

Tafi  awoke,  and  saw  here  and  there  on  wall 
and  floor  moving  specks  of  fire  gleaming  in 
the  dark.  His  superstitious  mind  was  alarmed. 
Surely  these  were  nothing  less  than  demons. 
Poor  Tafi!  He  dared  not  rise  to  labor,  and  in 
the  morning  the  bad  boy  Buffalmacco  duly  con- 
firmed him  in  his  belief  that  demons  had  visited 
the  room,  averring  that  those  individuals  hated 
painters. 

"  For,"  said  this  evil-minded  youth,  "  besides 
that  we  always  make  them  most  hideous,  we  think 
of  nothing  but  painting  saints,  both  men  and 
women,  on  walls  and  pictures;  which  is  much 
worse,  since  we  thereby  render  men  better  and 
more  devout,  to  the  great  despite  of  the  demons; 
and  for  all  this  the  devils  being  angry  with  us, 
and  having  more  power  by  night  than  by  day, 
they  play  these  tricks  with  us." 

And  so  credulous  was  Tafi  that  he  ceased  to 
rise  at  night  to  paint,  or  to  require  Buffalmacco  to 
do  so.  Moreover,  the  priest  was  as  superstitious 
as  Tafi,  and  confirmed  the  notion,  and,  as  every 


COMPANIONS  OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  165 

time  that  the  master  somewhat  recovered  from  his 
fright  and  recommenced  painting  and  making 
Buffalmacco  work  at  night,  he  was  sure  to  be  pun- 
ished by  seeing  the  little  wandering  lights,  the 
priest  earnestly  advised  him  to  give  up  the  prac- 
tice. The  story  became  known,  and  Tafi  and 
the  other  painters  dared  not  for  a  long  time  work 
at  night. 

But  I  should  like  to  see  the  company  of  beetles 
that  would  allow  me  to  fasten  lighted  or  unlighted 
tapers  to  their  backs. 

Even  the  geese  —  genus  Anser,  not  Homo  — 
that  one  meets  around  this  brook  are  prone  to 
look  upon  me  with  suspicion.  They  puff  out  their 
fatness  and  gaze  at  myself  and  dredger  with  an 
air  of  superiority  that  is  quite  crushing.  Evi- 
dently, as  the  Yakimas  of  Washington  Territory 
affirm,  geese  were  once  human  beings.  Else 
when  did  they  learn  that  bug-hunting  is  foolish- 
ness ?  They  seem  to  be  of  that  opinion  now.  It 
was  the  son  of  the  Sun,  so  say  the  Indians,  who 
caused  a  number  of  persons  to  swim  through  a 
lake  of  magic  oil  that  turned  them  all  to  animals. 
But  these  animals  were  fat  only  where  they  had 
touched  the  oil.  The  person  who  became  the  bear 
dived,  and  so  that  animal  is  fat  all  over.  But  the 
one  who  became  the  goose  swam  on  the  surface, 
and  that  is  the  reason  why  geese  are  fat  only  to 
the  water-line.  No,  the  backs  of  the  geese  will 
never  be  very  fat,  and  their  scornful  glances  per- 


166  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

suade  me  that  this  Indian  story  is  true.  Was  it 
not  Charles  V.  who  was  wont  to  say  of  our  detested 
language  that  one  should  "  use  English  in  speak- 
ing to  geese  "  ?  —  "en  ingles  a  los gansos."  But 
what  if  "  los  gansos  "  will  not  listen  ? 

But  the  scorn  of  geese  has  not  much  effect  on 
a  wielder  of  the  dredger. 

Down  in  that  grass  is  hidden  a  white  cat. 
She  is  out  entomologizing,  too,  doubtless,  and 
might  impart  some  valuable  ideas  to  a  searcher 
after  insects,  if  she  would.  But  cats  are  ever 
averse  to  giving  other  people  light.  The  feline 
race  are  as  stubborn  now  as  they  were  in  the  days 
when  poor  Tasso,  lacking  a  candle,  begged  his  cat 
that  she  would  lend  him  the  light  of  her  eyes  at 
night  that  he  might  see  to  write  his  verses. 


"  Non  avendo  candele  per  iscrivere  i  suoi  versi !  "  —  Tasso. 

Freya,  the  old  German  divinity  of  beauty,  was 
said  to  be  drawn  in  her  car  by  cats.  I  am  afraid 
that  the  lady  did  not  travel  very  fast.  Perhaps 
she  preferred  a  slow  gait  and  chose  her  coursers 
in  order  that  people  might  have  time  to  observe 
the  loveliness  of  her  countenance  as  she  passed. 

But  woe  to  the  cats  when  the  belief  in  fair  Freya 


COMPANIONS   OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  167 

vanished!  For  then,  of  course,  people  went  to 
the  other  extreme,  and,  in  contempt  of  Freya  and 
her  coursers,  cats  with  bladders  tied  to  their  feet 
were  cruelly  thrown  from  the  church-tower  at 
Ypres,  as  a  sign  that  the  people  had  done  with 
heathen  beliefs.  Perhaps  they  had,  but  that  was 
a  strange  proof  of  orthodoxy.  I  doubt  not  the 
pussies  would  have  been  better  satisfied  with  the 
religious  rightness  of  their  owners  if  neither  cat- 
reverence  nor  cat-contempt  had  prevailed. 

Still  I  do  not  know  that  the  custom  of  Ypres 
was  any  more  cruel  than  the  ancient  Scottish 
method  of  treating  cats.  For,  anciently,  when 
some  one  of  the  tartan-wearers  wanted  to  know 
something  of  the  future,  he  would  catch  a  live  cat 
and  hang  it  up  before  the  fire,  and  leave  it  there 
until  by  its  cries  it  had  attracted  other  cats  to  the 
place.  Then  the  worthy  Highlander  would  ask 
the  questions  he  wished  to  have  answered,  and 
would  interpret  the  cat-cries  so  as  to  make  re- 
plies in  the  Gaelic  tongue.  And  then,  when  the 
Highlander  was  fully  satisfied,  he  had  mercy  on 
the  singed  cat  and  set  it  free. 

Even  Paris  was  not  kind  to  cats,  for,  on  the  eve 
of  St.  John,  the  mayor  of  the  city  used  to  put 
about  a  dozen  cats  into  a  large  basket,  and  then, 
kind  man,  proceed  to  throw  the  unlucky  beings 
into  the  bonfires  that  were  built  on  that  festival. 

All  this  would  be  horrible  news  to  that  cat 
down  in  the  grass,  I  am  afraid  she  would  faint 


168  UP  AND  DOWN  THE   BROOKS. 

if  I  told  it  to  her.  One  must  be  careful  about 
telling  evil  tidings  too  suddenly. 

That  cat  would  feel  much  more  flattered  to 
hear  of  the  "  Cat's  Fugue  "  that  Dominico  Scar- 
latti made  from  those  five  notes  that  his  cat  struck 
when  she  jumped  on  the  piano  keys,  If  this  cat 
could  understand,  what  an  interesting  tale  could 
one  tell  her  of  that  painter  of  Switzerland,  Gott- 
fried Mind,  who  was  called  the  "  Raphael  of 
Cats  "  because  he  made  so  many  pictures  of  the 
feline  beauties.  And  how  sincerely  would  this  cat 
sympathize  with  Gottfried's  grief,  when,  on  ac- 
count of  some  signs  of  madness  that  had  shown 
themselves  in  the  cats  of  Berne,  the  magistrates 
of  the  town  gave  orders  that  the  cats  should  be 
killed !  Eight  hundred  cats  are  said  to  have  per- 
ished in  that  fearful  massacre.  Imagine  what 
Gottfried's  feelings  must  have  been !  How  ter- 
ribly lacerated !  Indeed  it  is  said  that  although 
he  managed  to  save  his  own  pet  cat  Minette  from 
this  St.  Bartholomew  of  the  pussies,  yet  he  never 
afterward  seemed  to  be  wholly  comforted. 

But,  the  killing-time  being  over,  he  set  about 
painting  pictures  of  more  cats  and  kittens  than 
ever,  and  the  next  winter  he  went  into  the  busi- 
ness of  cutting  chestnuts  into  the  shape  of  his 
adored  pets.  And  so  "  cute  "  were  his  chestnut- 
cats  that  people  bought  them  as  fast  as  he  could 
make  them.  I  fear  there  will  never  arise  another 
"  Raphael  of  Cats." 


COMPANIONS    OF  MY  SOLITUDE.  169 

"  II  cane  e  fedele  si,  ma  il  gatto  e  traditore." 
Dogs  are  faithful,  cats  are  traitors,  is  the  Italian 
sentiment.  But  I  had  rather  meet  a  cat  than  a 
dog  when  I  am  out  after  "  bugs."  There  is  a  dog 
that  lives  across  the  creek.  He  is  a  despicable 
person  with  a  mighty  voice,  and  his  sole  desire  is 
to  break  loose  and  rush  over  and  bite  me  when- 
ever he  sees  me  looking  among  the  branches  of 
that  weeping  willow.  He  takes  it  for  granted 
that  I  am  in  bad  business,  and  I  naturally  feel 
aggrieved.  Perhaps  he  is  color-blind,  and  mis- 
takes my  black  dress  for  the  blue  blouse  of  a 
Chinese  rag-picker,  for  I  have  seen  one  of  those 
persons  here  searching  this  little  ravine  for  addi- 
tions to  his  baskets. 

No  cat  ever  has  spoken  so  impudently  to  me 
when  on  these  entomologizing  excursions  as  that 
dog  has.  He  is  a  villain,  and  a  standing  argu- 
ment to  me  that  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  was  entirely 
wrong  when  he  said,  "  I  canna  but  believe  that 
dowgs  hae  sowls." 

As  a  general  thing,  however,  the  companion- 
ship of  "  critters  "  is  consoling.  Go  out  some  day 
when  you  are  disgusted  with  your  neighbors, 
when  the  inquisitiveness  and  idiocy  of  the  world 
of  human  beings  has  been  particularly  galling. 
Go  and  sit  down  on  the  green  grass  by  a  cow  for 
a  while.  Listen  to  her  speech,  look  into  her  eyes, 
observe  the  soothing  regularity  of  her  chewing. 
See  with  what  confiding  trust  the  goat  approaches 


170  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

you.  Pat  him  on  the  head  and  break  branches 
of  the  oak  for  him,  and  observe  with  what  bliss 
you  have  filled  his  soul.  And,  after  an  hour  of 
such  treatment,  see  if  the  "  blues "  have  not  de- 
parted. Whither  ?  Upward,  perhaps,  to  form 
part  of  the  sky.  Of  course  there  may  be  draw- 
backs to  this  treatment.  The  grass  may  be  damp, 
and  you  may  get  rheumatism,  but  that  is  your  own 
fault.  The  axiom  I  set  out  to  state  is  that  in 
cases  of  "  nerves,"  the  companionship  of  animals 
is  a  sort  of  anodyne. 

They  look  up  at  you  with  a  sort  of  humbleness 
or  audacity  as  suits  their  respective  personalities. 
And  when  two  black  kids  dance  for  you  the 
cachucha,  or  whatever  else  you  may  call  that  ex- 
traordinarily graceful  exercise  that  young  goats 
caper  through,  you  feel  mightily  pleased.  Thor 
himself,  you  reflect,  was  drawn  in  a  chariot  by 
two  goats,  Tanngnjost,  the  "  teeth-gnasher,"  and 
Tanngrisner,  "fire-flashing  teeth."  You  hardly 
attempt  to  pronounce  the  names  of  those  animals, 
even  to  yourself,  but  you  wonder  if  in  that  Scan- 
dinavian myth  there  does  not  lurk  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  grandest  personages  may 
find  comfort  in  the  society  of  animals.  For  that 
matter,  lower  creatures  than  animals  can  bring 
consoling  diversion  to  the  mind,  for  reptiles  and 
insects  have  powers  of  amusing  unsuspected  by 
those  who  have  never  watched  them. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

FROGS,  BOYS,  AND  OTHER  SMALL  DEER. 

"Come  hither,  boy." 

TzYws  Andronicus. 

ON  the  higher  ground  aiid  the  hills  near  this 
brook  dwell  other  creatures.  In  that  garden 
yonder  I  have  often  seen  the  great,  yellow,  slimy 
slug,  Ariolimax,  so  frequently  found  in  damp 
spots  along  the  Pacific  coast.  I  am  afraid  I 
stocked  that  garden  with  those  slugs.  Being  up 
among  the  foot-hills  north  of  here  I  found  several 
of  the  slugs,  one  measuring  about  four  and  three 
eighths  inches  long.  Six  or  seven  inches  is  a 
length  attained  by  these  creatures  sometimes.  I 
captured  a  big  one  and  took  it  away  with  me. 

Little  did  the  people  in  a  certain  restaurant 
that  evening  think  that  a  prim  and  proper  person 
sitting  at  one  of  the  tables,  calmly  partaking  of 
her  supper,  had  carefully  tied  up  a  huge  slug 
from  the  gaze  of  the  world  and  now  had  the  crea- 
ture waiting  beside  her.  But  it  was  even  so.  I 
brought  the  slug  home.  I  think  that  was  about 
two  years  ago,  and  now  in  the  twilight  of  April 
evenings,  or  even  occasionally  in  a  September 
rain,  various  Ariolimaxes  drag  their  bulk  into 


172     •.          UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

sight  upon  the  walk.  One  evening  a  little  girl 
called  my  attention  to  a  slug  that  was  about  five 
inches  long,  an  inch  and  a  half  high,  and  about  as 
wide.  The  slug  looked  a  good  deal  like  a  slimy, 
glistening  sweet  potato.  Even  the  infants  among 
these  slugs  are  of  greater  size  than  ordinary.  I 
frequently  see  partially  grown  slugs  that  measure 
perhaps  three  inches  long,  but  are  only  about 
half  an  inch  wide. 

Ariolimax  has  a  dainty  taste.  Blue  violets  are 
delightful  articles  of  food  to  these  slugs.  I  re- 
member how  horrified  two  ladies  were  to  meet  a 
moderate-sized  Ariolimax  among  the  leaves  of  the 
violets  they  were  picking.  The  slime  left  by  such 
large  slugs  is  very  tenacious.  Get  some  of  it  on 
your  hand  and  it  is  a  difficult  job  to  wash  the 
substance  off.  Step  in  it,  and  you  will  wish  you 
had  n't.  The  promenades  that  the  Ariolimax 
family  insist  on  taking  toward  dark  become  a 
serious  source  of  annoyance  and  worry  to  one 
who  does  not  wish  to  set  his  foot  on  one  of  these 
huge  creatures.  I  should  as  soon  think  of  crush- 
ing a  baby. 

I  once  found  one  of  these  huge  slugs  inside  of 
General  Fremont.  For  the  benefit  of  the  too 
startled  reader  I  would  hasten  to  explain  that  the 
General  mentioned  is  a  huge  redwood,  one  of  the 
"  Big  Trees  "  near  Santa  Cruz.  Damp  woods  and 
the  vicinity  of  springs  delight  Ariolimax  and  in 
such  places  this  creature  may  hide  during  the  dry 
summers. 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL.  DEER.     173 

What  varied  tastes  there  are  among  these 
higher  ground  creatures  !  Some  of  them  are  the 
opposite  of  Ariolimax  in  their  likings. 

On  dusty  paths  over  these  hills  in  August,  you 
will  sometimes  see,  by  looking  sharply,  a  little 
creature  skipping  along  by  your  feet.  If  you  are 
not  on  the  alert  you  may  mistake  him  for  a  bit  of 
dry  stick  or  straw  blown  by  some  minute  breeze. 
Catch  him  if  you  can  and  put  him  under  a  micro- 
scope. He  is  one  of  the  Thysanura,  or  Spring- 
tails,  a  narrow  creature,  with  long  antennae  in 
front,  six  legs  in  the  mid- 
dle, and  some  bristles  be- 
hind. One  that  I  caught 
could  jump  in  a  very  lively 
manner.  He  seemed  to 
be  covered  with  butterfly- 
like  gray  scales  that  came 
off  from  the  poor  fellow 
when  I  turned  him  over 
on  his  back  or  in  other 
positions  to  see  him 
plainly.  He  had,  I  think, 
six-jointed  antenna,  and 
three  anal  bristles. 

Wingless  creatures  are 
the  Thysanura,  but  what 
does  it  matter?  Perhaps  One  of  the  Thysanura. 

hopping  is  just  as  much 

fun  as  flying  to  one  who  is  used  to  the  former 

method  of  progression. 


174  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

There  flies  a  bee.  Job  was  responsible  for  the 
existence  of  bees,  I  believe,  according  to  the 
rabbins.  They  anciently  told  a  grisly  tale  that 
before  the  days  of  Job  there  were  neither  silk- 
worms nor  honey  -  bees  upon  the  earth.  But, 
after  that  righteous  man's  great  affliction  and  his 
restoration  to  prosperity,  the  worms  that  had  de- 
voured the  body  of  Job  were  turned  into  silk- 
worms, and  the  flies  that  had  tormented  him  were 
changed  into  honey-bees. 

Mahomet  said  that  bees  should  be  admitted 
into  Paradise,  although  I  fear  the  gentleman  was 
about  as  far  wrong  in  his  assertion  as  the  rabbins 
were  in  theirs.  It  is  at  least  a  queer  thing  that 
there  should  have  once  been  thought  to  be  so  in- 
timate a  relation  between  bees  and  souls.  I  be- 
lieve it  is  said  that  in  some  parts  of  England  bees 
are  not  allowed  to  leave  their  hives  on  Friday,  on 
account  of  the  religious  scruples  of  their  owners. 
And  the  French  peasant  women  go  on  the  Day  of 
Purification  to  read  the  Gospel  to  the  bees.  How 
very  wicked  must  wild  bees  that  have  no  reli- 
gious privileges  appear  to  such  people. 

These  Hydrometridce  are  very  numerous  here. 
You  will  see  different  sizes  of  them.  In  the  day- 
time, I  mean.  The  Skaters  go  to  bed  at  night, 
like  other  respectable  citizens. 

I  discovered  this  fact  by  keeping  some  of  these 
creatures  in  a  miniature  pond.  At  night  they 
went  to  bed  on  the  sides  of  the  lake,  on  the  earth 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND  OTHER  SMALL  DEER.     175 

above  the  water.  Neither  were  they  dissipated 
creatures,  for  I  found  one  of  the  Skaters  going 
to  bed  as  early  as  a  quarter  before  six  on  a  June 
evening  before  it  was  dark. 

They  did  not  like  to  get  up  very  early  in  the 
morning.  I  have  gone  to  the  miniature  lake  at 
half-past  six  in  the  morning,  but  the  folks  were 
not  up.  By  looking  sharply,  I  could  see  one 
hanging  above  the  water,  his  hind  legs  flopping 
helplessly  down  below  him.  In  a  bigger  hole 
were  one  or  two  others,  as  could  be  seen  by  the 
number  of  legs  protruding  from  the  cranny. 

But  the  folks  were  not  at  all  disturbed  by  my 
visit  to  their  chamber.  Perhaps  they  were  dream- 
ing. Did  they  dream  of  the  brook  where  they 
once  skated  as  free  bugs,  or  did  they  dream  of  a 
time  when  their  jailer  would  be  able  to  catch 
more  palatable  flies  for  them  than  those  were  that 
were  thrown  in  yesterday  ?  Again,  at  half -past 
seven,  I  looked  in  upon  them,  but  the  sluggards 
were  still  abed.  Water  -  skaters  are  evidently 
lazy. 

And  I  do  not  think  that  they  have  as  quick 
eyes  as  one  might  imagine  them  to  possess.  For, 
in  idle  moments,  when  I  have  stood  beside  some 
little  pool  on  which  the  Water-skaters  were  numer- 
ous, after  the  first  shock  of  my  presence  was  over 
and  the  creatures  had  forgotten  me,  I  have  amused 
myself  with  casting  broken  heads  of  grasses  into 
the  water,  as  near  the  creatures  as  I  could,  to  see 


176  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

if  they  would  mistake  them  for  moths  or  other 
living  morsels  falling  within  reach.  And,  al- 
though many  times  my  grasses  were  unnoticed, 
yet,  at  other  times,  one  of  the  Skaters  would  turn 
hastily  toward  the  grass,  or  steer  himself  to  it,  to 
make  sure  it  were  something  edible. 

Perhaps,  however,  such  a  Skater  may  have 
hoped  to  find  some  bug  clinging  to  the  grass,  but 
the  action  of  the  moment  seemed  to  indicate  that 
the  Skater  had  been  deceived.  Yet  the  Skaters 
are  very  quick  to  see  a  person  approach  the  pool, 
and  after  sitting  on  the  bank  awhile  one  has  only 
to  stand  up  to  send  the  whole  company  of  Skaters 
fleeing  away  over  the  water. 

A  boy  once  told  me  that  these  creatures  have 
fights,  one  that  has  something  to  eat  being  chased 
around  by  several  others.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  Water-skaters  ever  attempt  to  capture  the 
Whirligig  beetles.  I  have  seen  a  Whirligig  pass 
directly  before  a  middle-sized  Skater,  and  yet  the 
latter  did  not  seem  to  care  for  him.  Water-skat- 
ers and  Whirligigs  can  be  seen  in  joint  possession 
of  the  surface  of  some  small  pond.  Perhaps  the 
Whirligig  is  too  hard  a  morsel  for  the  Skater  to 
enjoy.  In  the  few  experiments  that  I  have  made 
with  Water-skaters  on  the  surface  of  pools,  I  have 
not  found  the  insects  liable  to  be  deceived  like  the 
Whirligigs  with  bits  of  red,  white,  or  dark  cloth. 
But  I  have  held  these  by  white  strings,  and  per- 
haps the  Skaters  saw  through  the  device  on  that 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL   DEER.    177 

account.  When  I  deceived  the  Whirligigs  they 
were  in  captivity,  and  the  thread  with  which  I  let 
down  such  bits  of  cloth  may  have  been  so  fine 
as  not  to  be  noticed. 

One  finds  in  May  some  of  the  little  Water- 
skaters,  very  minute  as  compared  with  the  adults, 
yet  looking  like  them  as  real  bugs  generally  do. 
The  little  Skaters  are  very  nimble,  and  seem  to  . 
know  immediately  that  a  bottle  is  not  their  cus- 
tomary home.  So  small  are  they  that  unless  you 
are  near  a  pool,  looking  intently  at  the  surface, 
you  would  hardly  notice  what  they  are,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  it  enters  into  the  boys'  heads  that 
these  are  the  same  as  the  big  Water-spiders.  At 
least  one  boy  that  I  spoke  to  about  it  seemed  to 
be  ignorant  of  the  fact.  But  such  minutiaB  of 
pond  life  is  not  generally  regarded  by  boys.  I 
have  heard  one  of  them  call  a  snail  a  "  beetle  " 
and  another  call  a  water-shrimp  a  "  bug." 

The  latter  fresh-water  crustaceans  are  very  nu- 
merous in  these  pools.  The  sticks  and  hiding- 
places  are  alive  with  them.  They  have  five  joints 
to  their  legs  and  about  thirteen  segments  to  their 
bodies.  Probably  they  are  akin  to  Gammarus 
robustus.  They  are  a  nuisance,  for  the  bug- 
hunter  can  hardly  shake  the  dredger  clear  of 
them.  Some  will  stick  until  the  bug-hunter  is  on 
the  meadow  going  home,  and  will  then  crawl  out 
and  demand  to  be  taken  back  to  the  brook.  One 
hastens  to  shake  the  crawling  things  out  in  the 


178  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

midst  of  the  grass  and  leave  them  to  walk  back 
to  the  pool.  If  they  were  beetles  with  wings, 
one  could  easily  drop  them  and  relieve  one's  con- 
science by  the  remembrance  that  they  could  fly. 
But  such  mode  of  progression  is  denied  the  wa- 
ter-shrimps, and  if  it  happens  to  be  a  day  when 
the  bug-hunter  is  specially  tender-hearted  he  will 
turn  back  and  shake  the  dredger  over  the  brook 
once  more.  If  it  be  a  hard-hearted  period,  the 
bug-catcher  proceeds  onward  with  a  guilty  con- 
sciousness that  he  will  see  the  dried  bodies  of 
those  shrimps  adorning  his  dredger  next  day. 
Whichever  way  the  bug-catcher  decides,  his  peace 
of  mind  is  destroyed,  and  he  mentally  anathema- 
tizes the  water-shrimp. 

Here  on  our  pathway,  as  we  go  to  get  "  bugs," 
is  an  old  shoe,  cast  away  on  the  hill-side.  Was 
there  ever  a  fabled  divinity  of  the  ancient  time 
to  whom  old  shoes  were  sacred  ?  Memory  saith 
not,  but  to  Vidar  the  Silent,  the  son  of  Odin, 
were  due  the  scraps  of  leather  that  were  cut  from 
the  toes  and  heels  in  making  patterns  for  shoes, 
and  the  Norse  shoemaker  who  wished  to  assist  the 
gods  was  charged  to  throw  away  all  such  pieces, 
since  it  was  supposed  that  they  went  to  make 
Vidar  the  Silent's  shoe.  Of  this  it  was  told,  "  It 
is  a  thick  shoe,  of  which  it  is  said  that  material 
has  been  gathered  for  it  through  all  ages."  Per- 
haps, if  Vidar  had  not  been  too  proud  to  receive 
offerings  of  old  shoes,  he  might  have  constructed 
his  own  foot-covering  the  sooner. 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL  DEER.    179 

Pop  !  pop !  pop  !  in  a  succession  of  splashes, 
go  the  frogs  into  the  water,  tQl  the  sound  resem- 
bles a  small  cannonading  extending  up  the  stream 
in  honor  of  one's  coming.  Small  idea  have  the 
frogs  of  welcoming  any  one,  'however.  Sunning 
themselves  on  the  banks,  they  hear  the  sound  of 
footsteps,  and  hastily  arise  and  throw  themselves 
beneath  the  flood.  Good  reason,  too,  have  they 
for  such  cautiousness.  One  boy  informed  me  that 
he  made  sometimes  seventy-five  cents  per  day  in 
catching  frogs  for  a  Frenchman,  and  on  a  remark- 
able day  this  boy  earned  a  dollar.  No  wonder  the 
frogs  flee. 

There  is  something  pleasantly  meditative  about 
a  frog  that  sits  on  a  bank.  One  feels  inclined  to 
sit  down  beside  him  and  inquire  the  subject  of  his 
meditations.  Why  should  the  heralds  of  the 
Middle  Ages  have  used  the  frog  as  a  symbol  of 
degradation  ?  I  would  not  reveal  such  a  fact  as 
that  to  froggy,  if  I  sat  beside  him.  I  would,  in- 
stead, point  out  to  him  the  blessedness  of  the  fact 
that  there  are  no  pike  in  this  brook,  and  quote  to 
him  Izaak  Walton's  words  :  "  It  is  observed  that 
the  pike  will  eat  venomous  things,  as  some  kinds 
of  frogs  are,  and  yet  live  without  being  harmed 
by  them  ;  for,  as  some  say,  he  has  in  him  a  nat- 
ural balsam  or  antidote  against  all  poison."  Did 
not  Queen  Elizabeth  call  Francis  of  Anjou  her 
"  Frog  "  ?  It  was  not  complimentary  to  Francis' 
looks,  but  froggy  would  not  understand  the  sar- 
casm. 


180  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

'I  have  my  own  idea  why  Vanessa  Antiopa 
wears  black.  I  also  would  wear  mourning  if  I 
flitted  daily  by  this  brook  and  saw  the  cruel  deeds 
done  here.  One  day  in  April  when  Vanessa  was 
winging  up  and  doVn  the  creek,  I  was  passing 
under  the  willows  where  their  dropped-off  blos- 
soms lay  like  so  many  fuzzy,  brownish  caterpil- 
lars on  the  grass,  and  I  made  my  way  to  a  well- 
known  pool.  Horrors  were  enacting  there. 


Vanessa  Antiopa.     Mourning  Cloak. 

Is  there  anything  more  cool  than  the  way  in 
which  human  beings  assert  their  ownership  of 
smaller  beings  ?  "  Here  's  my  frog,"  cried  a  lit- 
tle fellow  as  I  drew  near.  The  youngsters  were 
engaged  in  the  time-honored  custom  of  killing  a 
frog.  The  poor  creature,  already  hurt,  was  swim- 
ming with  the  little  strength  left  it,  and  a  boy 
caught  it  up  only  to  throw  it  back  into  the  water 
as  a  target  for  more  shots.  I  fled  from  the  spot. 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL  DEER.    181 

I  wonder  that  Vanessa  can  bear  to  spend  her  life 
by  a  creek  that  has  such  sights  to  show,  but  I  think 
she  shows  good  taste  in  dressing  in  mourning. 

If  I  am  ever  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  I  shall 
certainly  write  an  editorial  on  "The  Opinions 
Of  Frogs."  "  Qu'en  disent  les  grenovilles  ? " 
"  What  will  the  frogs  say  ?  "  was  the  old  court- 
phrase  at  Versailles  when  high-born  beings  spoke 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Paris.  Would  that  a  little 
more  deference  to  the  opinions  of  frogs  might 
prevail  nowadays. 

Bah !  What  becomes  of  our  boasted  civiliza- 
tion when  it  is  looked  at  through  the  eyes  of  one 
of  the  lower  creatures  ?  Have  I  not  seen  a  per- 
son, otherwise  intelligent  and  good-natured,  slap 
ants  so  as  not  to  kill  them,  but  leave  them  pain- 
fully stumbling  along  wondering  what  right  such 
a  giant  had  to  put  them  in  pain  ?  Have  I  not 
known  a  person  to  give  partially  stunned  flies  to 
Skaters  ?  Have  I  not  known  a  teacher  to  dissect 
a  sea-urchin  alive  before  his  class  ?  As  for  those 
abominable  "  naturalists  "  who  pin  bugs,  beetles, 
and  flies  alive  and  leave  them  to  die  lingering 
deaths,  I  have  no  words  strong  enough  to  say  of 
them ;  and  if  I  thought  that  by  writing  this  book 
I  should  interest  some  person  who  would  catch 
and  torment  any  of  the  lower  creatures,  I  would 
put  my  manuscript  in  the  fire.  Better  is  it  with 
the  Moslems  to  let  a  moth  fly  by  unmolested,  be- 
lieving that  it  is  a  "  messenger  sent  from  the  dead 


182       UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

to  see  what  is  transpiring  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,"  than  to  have  no  more  tenderness  for  the 
creature  than  to  pierce  its  vitals  with  a  pin  and 
leave  it  to  endure  agony. 

But  there  is  small  use  in  lecturing  boys.  An- 
other day  I  came  across  two  of  them  trying  their 
slings  on  a  polliwog  in  a  pool.  They  "  smashed  " 
him,  as  one  of  them  stated,  and,  on  my  express- 
ing a  wish  to  know  why  they  did  such  deeds,  one 
of  the  boys  informed  me  that  the  polliwog  had 
no  business  to  be  there. 

"  Why,  yes,  he  has,"  I  said.  "  He  was  hatched 
here." 

"  How  do  you  know  where  he  was  hatched  ?  " 
queried  one  youngster. 

"  Well,  it  was  in  this  brook,"  I  responded. 

And  then,  proceeding  in  a  severely  virtuous 
vein,  I  said,  u  You  would  n't  like  it,  if  you  were 
a  polliwog." 

"  Yes,  I  should,"  said  the  Incorrigible.  "  I  'd 
sneak  away  where  they  could  n't  find  me." 

"  Maybe  you  would  n't  have  sense  enough  to 
do  that,"  I  answered,  preparing  to  leave  such  a 
reasoner. 

"  Yes,  I  should,"  answered  he,  with  perfect 
faith  in  his  own  powers. 

And,  as  I  climbed  the  bank,  he  sent  after  me 
this  awful  threat,  "  If  you  's  a  polliwog,  we  'd 
smash  you,  too." 

Would  he,  indeed !  Depravity,  thy  name  is 
Boy. 


FROGS,   BOYS  AND   OTHER  SMALL  DEER.    183 

And  yet  my  conscience  smites  me  when  I  say 
so,  for  have  I  not  held  entertaining  conversations 
with  boys  along  this  creek,  and  have  they  not 
told  me  things  about  water-creatures  that  inter- 
ested me  much  ?  Sometimes  the  things  were  true, 
sometimes  false,  but,  at  least,  the  boys  believed 
them,  and  did  their  best  to  impart  to  me  their 
knowledge.  Let  me  not  be  ungrateful. 

Beside  this  pool  one  morning  came  a  youth  (I 
think  the  same  one  who  made  the  fearful  threat 
about  the  polliwog),  and  lamented  to  me  that  he 
had  been  compelled  to  sell  two  frogs  for  a  nickel 
apiece. 

The  subject  of  frogs  was  called  to  our  rninds 
by  the  sight  of  one  dead  in  the  pool.  The  boy 
confessed  that  he  had  killed  that  frog,  but  he  said 
it  was  too  nearly  dead  before  for  him  to  sell  it. 

"  Ought  to  have  had  a  dime,"  said  he,*referring 
to  the  sale  he  made  to  the  Frenchman.  "  /  would 
n't  eat  them  for  a  hundred  dollars.  The  French- 
man says  his  brother  eats  them.  He  says  they  're 
nicer  than  any  other  meat." 

And  it  seemed  to  me  that  two  nickels  was 
rather  small  pay  for  the  labor  of  splashing  around 
in  a  pool  catching  two  frogs,  and  then  tramping 
several  miles  to  sell  them.  However  the  boy  was 
not  discouraged.  The  pool  had  been  clear  when 
he  caught  the  two,  and  he  thought  he  had  seen 
two  others  in  it.  He  was  coming  back  after  them. 

And  then  ensued  a  talk  on  the  prices  of  frogs. 


184  UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 

Some  boys  must  have  a  faculty  for  getting  more 
money  than  others  out  of  that  Frenchman,  or  else 
the  frogs  they  catch  are  bigger  than  those  caught 
by  others,  for  this  boy,  on  my  mentioning  one  fel- 
low who  had  received  a  dollar,  said,  "  That  's  for 
a  dozen." 

The  dead  frog  in  the  pool  was  estimated  by  this 
young  financier  to  be  worth  about  ten  cents,  if 
the  creature  had  been  in  good  condition. 

This  youngster  and  his  companions  tramped  on 
up  the  stream,  and  left  me  to  sit  down  on  the 
bank  in  blissful  solitude.  But  it  was  only  for  a 
moment.  A  boy  and  two  dogs  came  along  the 
side  of  the  bank.  The  boy  was  bent  on  giving 
'  the  dogs  a  bath,  and  he  did  so,  seizing  them  by 
the  neck  and  back  and  throwing  them  in.  They 
were  good  sized-fellows,  half  Newfoundland,  but 
not  yet  full  grown,  and  they  did  hate  their  bath, 
but  they  had  to  endure  it.  Their  master  regaled 
me  with  a  tale  of  the  way  in  which  he  had  tried 
to  make  them  swim  in  salt  water,  and  how  they 
swam  in  it  to  some  schooner,  thinking  it  was 
land,  and  then  the  poor,  disappointed  brutes  had 
to  turn  around  and  swim  back.  The  boy  was 
afraid  they  would  drown,  and  indeed  they  were 
quite  exhausted  on  reaching  land. 

This  boy  was  quite  a  communicative,  pleasant 
little  fellow.  He  was  full  of  ideas  about  bugs, 
and  anxious  to  know  more,  and  volunteered  the 
information  that  frogs  have  to  come  to  the  top 


FROGS,   BOYS,    AND    OTHER  SMALL   DEER.     185 

of  the  water  to  breathe.  Finding  that  I  agreed 
with  him  in  this,  he  furthermore  informed  me  that 
my  dredger  was  a  fine  one.  It  was  rather  amus- 
ing to  hear  him  admire  the  ragged  old  thing,  but 
I  believe  boys  have  coveted  it  before.  He  said, 
though,  that  it  was  not  the  kind  to  catch  frogs 
with ;  they  would  jump  out ;  one  must  have  a 
long,  sack-like  dredger.  And  he  said  that  frogs 
have  regular  sleeping-places  in  holes  on  the  sides 
of  pools. 

"  You  can  come  to  this  pool  at  night  and  see 
them,"  he  said  ;  "  some  go  in  the  grass,  and  the 
same  frogs  go  in  the  same  holes.  They  keep 
their  heads  a  little  out  of  water  all  night." 

I  unwittingly  informed  this  boy  of  the  inten- 
tions of  the  former  one  in  regard  to  coming  back 
after  those  two  frogs.  My  second  visitor's  cupidity 
was  aroused,  and  he  announced  that,  if  he  could 
get  one,  the  other  fellow  would  be  disappointed. 

This  second  boy  proceeded  to  describe  to  me 
the  water-snakes  found  in  the  other  creek. 

"  There  are  none  in  here,"  said  he  ;  "  I  've 
hunted  for  them." 

And  I  could  verify  that  statement,  for  I  have 
never  seen  any  here. 

"  They  're  about  as  long  as  your  stick,"  he 
went  on,  referring  to  the  nearly  yard-long  handle 
of  my  dredger.  "  They  've  got  a  red  streak  on 
top  of  their  backs,  and  they  're  gray,  with  black 
streaks  on  the  sides.  They  bite,  and  they  're 


186  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

poison.  The  boys  catch  them  with  a  noose  of 
grass.  Some  of  those  oats  would  do." 

And  springing  across  the  pool,  the  boy  picked 
a  shoot  of  oats,  stripped  off  the  heads,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  make  a  dainty  little  slip-noose  of  the 
thin  end. 

"  You  hold  that  in  the  water  and  let  the  water- 
snake  go  through  it,  and  then  you  just  draw  it 
up  and  catch  him,"  said  he,  suiting  the  action  to 
the  word ;  "  only  you  must  draw  it  up  just  back 
of  the  head  or  else  they  11  bite  you.  We  catch 
lizards  that  way." 

"  Water-lizards  ?  "    I  asked. 

"  No  ;  just  any  kind  of  lizards,"  said  he. 

"  What  do  you  do  with  the  water-snakes  ?  "  I 
asked. 

"  My  father  sold  three  for  me  the  other  day," 
said  the  boy,  and  then  he  mentioned  the  name  of 
a  San  Francisco  druggist  as  the  purchaser. 

"  What  does  he  do  with  them?  "  I  asked. 

"  He  's  a  snake-charmer,"  said  the  boy. 

And,  seeing  that  he  would  answer  any  question 
that  I  had  a  mind  to  ask  him,  I  queried,  inquisi- 
tively, "  How  much  did  he  pay  you  for  the  water- 
snakes  ?  " 

"  Half  a  dollar  apiece,"  said  the  boy. 

As  I  sat  beside  the  pool  I  twice  saw  a  leech 
swimming  through  the  water,  its  body  undulating 
as  it  moved. 

The  boy  caught  sight  of  it  and  said,  "  That 's 
just  the  way  the  water-snakes  swim." 


FROGS,  BOYS,  AND  OTHER  SMALL  DEER.  187 

"  They  go  down  differently  from  what  they 
come  up,  —  don't  they  ? "  he  went  on,  as  the 
leech  descended  near  the  further  bank  ;  "  they  go 
straight  down,  and  they  wiggle  when  they  come 
up." 

Maybe  so,  but  I  never  noticed  it. 

My  talkative  companion  furthermore  stated 
that  "  up  by  the  college  some  boys  found  a 
gopher-snake  with  a  weasel  in  its  mouth." 

Ah,  many  and  many  an  interesting  thing  have 
the  boys  told  me.  It  has  been  part  of  my  craft 
to  worm  information  out  of  them.  They  are  so 
ready  to  tell  all  they  know  and  are  so  often  cor- 
rect in  their  observations.  And  shall  my  pen 
revile  my  benefactors  ?  But  one  aches  to  shake 
them  when  they  are  cruel. 

Nor  is  cruelty  limited  by  age,  for  did  I  not  find 
a  five-year-old  and  a  perhaps  four-year  old  —  may- 
hap only  three  —  on  the  top  of  that  bank,  engaged 
in  tormenting  a  small  butterfly  and  a  moth  ?  The 
boys  would  toss  their  prizes  into  the  air,  let  them 
fly  a  little  way,  and  catch  them  again.  I  remon- 
strated, but  in  vain.  The  younger  one  opened  his 
hand  to  show  me  his  moth,  and  I  was  invited  to 
have  a  "  lady-bug,"  as  one. of  them  called  a  Dia- 
brotica  that  he  had  found.  One  boy  announced 
that  they  were  going  to  catch  grasshoppers,  and  I 
think  that  the  little  butterfly  was  almost  dead 
when  I  went  away. 

I    herewith  confess  that  I   stole  that  younger 


188  UP  AND   DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

boy's  moth.  I  should  not  have  deprived  him  of 
it  if  he  had  behaved  himself,  but  he  went  too  far. 
He  had  done  enough  in  keeping  it  shut  up  in  his 
dirty,  hot  little  hand. 

But,  by  the  time  I  had  walked  down  the  road  to 
a  pool,  the  boys  came  rushing  toward  it,  and  before 
I  knew  what  he  was  about  to  do,  that  younger  imp 
threw  his  moth  into  the  water.  The  poor  thing 
struggled,  and  calling  some  oats  to  my  assistance 
I  fished  it  out  and  clapped  it  in  my  tin.  More- 
over I  delivered  a  small-sized  sermon  to  the  imp. 

"  Give  it  to  me,"  said  the  former  owner. 

"  You  can't  have  it,  if  you  're  going  to  be  so 
naughty." 

"  Give  it  to  me,"  sternly  demanded  the  boy. 

I  looked  at  him.  He  had  run  out-doors  so 
much  without  his  hat  that  the  skin  looked  almost 
ready  to  peel  off  his  forehead. 

"  Give  it  to  me,"  reiterated  he,  with  all  the  im- 
pressiveness  at  his  command. 

But  I  turned  and  climbed  the  bank  while  he 
proclaimed  his  desire  to  throw  that  moth  away 
out  there  on  the  water,  and  the  youngsters  an- 
nounced that  they  were  going  to  catch  some  more 
things  and  throw  them  in.  But  I  think  that  was 
only  an  assertion  of  helpless  wrath,  for  I  passed 
by  the  pool  a  little  while  after  and  110  such  work 
as  had  been  threatened  was  going  on.  Privately 
I  was  glad  that  the  boy  had  thrown  the  moth 
into  the  water,  for  it  gave  me  a  chance  to  take 


FROGS,    BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL  DEER.    189 

the  creature  home  and  look  at  it,  a  thing  I  had 
wanted  to  do  from  the  first.  I  had  an  idea  that 
my  booty  might  possibly  be  Arctia  virgo,  the  Vir- 
gin Tiger-moth.  But  it  was  not.  It  had  pecti- 
nated antennae,  yellow  fore  wings  marked  with 
rectangular  blocks  of  black,  its  abdomen  marked 
in  the  same  style,  while  on  the  hind  wings  was  a 
tinge  of  red,  in  addition  to  the  dark  marks.  Hav- 
ing observed  so  much  I  let  the  poor  thing  go  free. 
"  I  wept  when  I  was  born,  and  every  day  shows 
why/'  says  old  George  Herbert.  Perhaps  moths 
also  groan  to  themselves  about  the  bitterness  of 
life.  If  insects  could  express  their  feelings  to- 
ward their  human  persecutors,  I  think  sometimes 
the  creatures  would  join  in  something  like  the  old 
French  song :  — 

"  Ah,  §a  ira,  §a  ira,  §a  ira, 
Les  aristocrates  a  la  lanterne." 

I  am  afraid  that  the  attractions  of  this  brook 
prove  too  great  for  the  integrity  of  the  boys  at 
times. 

"  Somebody 's  playing  hookey,"  I  heard  one 
boy  say,  as  he  came  up  to  a  group  of  three  others 
under  some  willows. 

"  So  're  you." 

" 1  'm  not," 

And  the  accused  boys  both  repudiated  the  sug- 
gestion with  virtuous  scorn,  although  a  minute  af- 
terward I  heard  the  school-bell  ring  and  no  one 


190  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

of  the  four  started.  They  were  looking  at  one  of 
their  number  who,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  had  a 
little  while  before  this  fallen  into  the  brook  and 
was  in  the  process  of  being,  restored  to  dryness, 
his  jacket  being  spread  out  on  the  grass.  "  Na- 
ture's unhoused  lyceum"  had  more  charms  for  the 
four  than  that  school-house  on  the  hill,  and  they 
passed  me  afterwards,  bent  on  some  errand  by  the 
brookside,  yet  stopping  to  inquire  if  I  had  found 
anything ;  meaning  bugs,  of  course. 

I  have  one  fear.  It  is  this.  I  came  up  a  bank 
a  while  ago,  and  in  the  road  above  it  were  a  num- 
ber of  school  children  playing.  As  I  passed  with 
my  dredger  covered  with  paper,  and  my  spoon 
and  bottle  held  unostentatiously  in  my  hand,  T 
heard  in  the  midst  of  the  noise  and  confusion 
what  sounded  like  an  indistinct  remark  about 
"  frogs."  There  seemed  to  be  no  appropriateness 
in  such  a  reference  except  that  I  was  near.  Now 
I  can  endure  with  equanimity  being  called  a  "  fish- 
lady."  That  is  an  honorable  business.  But,  if 
I  am  about  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  "  lady  that 
catches  frogs,"  I  demur.  My  heart  begins  to  fail 
me  at  the  prospect. 

The  boys  do  not  suspect  me  of  such  a  thing,  or 
they  might  not  tell  me  of  their  trades  so  freely  as 
they  do.  How  wicked  should  I  be  to  take  advan- 
tage of  them  and  steal  their  business ! 

But  this  Frenchman  and  his  brother  are  far 
from  being  like  "  poor  Tom  that  eats  the  swirn- 


FROGS,    BOYS,   AND    OTHER  SMALL   DEER.    191 

ming  frog,  the  toad,  the  tadpole,  the  wall-newt, 
and  the  water,"  The  Frenchmen  are  more  partic- 
ular, and  if  a  frog  is  not  a  "  red-legger  "  it  is  not 
salable  to  them. 

So  are  the  boys  driven  to  using  their  eyes  in 
picking  out  their  wares,  for  it  would  be  a  sorry 
thing  indeed  to  carry  the  wrong  objects  several 
miles  and  then  be  met  with  a  flat  denial  of  money 
in  return  for  them. 

It  is  said  that  the  old,  bald,  wrinkled  Paul  of 
Russia,  who  was  so  ugly  that  he  did  not  dare  put 
his  countenance  on  his  coin,  issued  a  proclamation 
prohibiting,  under  penalty  of  killing  by  the  knout, 
any  one  of  his  subjects  from  making  use  of  the 
expression  "  bald,"  in  speaking  of  the  head,  or 
"  snubbed,"  in  referring  to  the  nose.  And,  more- 
over, the  same  gentleman,  with  the  characteristic 
fear  of  the  Czars,  forbade  the  academy  to  use  the 
word  "  revolution  "  in  speaking  of  the  courses  of 
the  stars. 

I  suppose  there  are  tabooed  subjects  of  conver- 
sation with  all  persons,  and  I  should  think  that 
the  special  objects  to  be  avoided  in  conversing 
with  frogs  would  be  u  boys  "  and  "  Frenchmen." 

A  little  Portuguese  boy  that  I  found  several 
days  after  my  conversation  with  the  boy  who  had 
the  dogs  gave  me  a  much  more  moderate  estimate 
of  the  length  of  water  -snakes  than  the  former 
boy  had  given.  The  little  Portuguese  said  that 
the  snakes  went  "  down  in  the  mud." 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


192  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

But  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  perhaps  he 
hardly  knew  the  creatures  after  all.  His  face  ex- 
pressed a  doubt  of  himself,  although  he  asserted 
that  the  snakes  were  in  the  other  creek.  He  had 
seen  them  there.  Another  boy  with  him  volun- 
teered the  guess  that  they  caught  "fish  and 
things." 

In  like  manner  did  I  hear  a  vague  rumor  from 
one  boy  of  a  kind  of  bug,  in  the  other  creek,  that 
"  had  horns  behind."  Taking  the  peculiar  de- 
scription that  the  boy  did  his  best  to  give  me,  I 
should  judge  that  he  meant  the  kind  of  Water- 
scorpions  that  bear  breathing- tubes  behind  like 
Ranatra.  There  are  no  such  Scorpions  in  this 
brook,  I  believe.  In  all  my  dredging  I  have 
never  found  any  of  that  tube-bearing  variety, 
Nepa,  in  this  stream.  Probably,  from  the  pecu- 
liar manner  in  which  the  scorpions  of  this  brook 
carry  their  eggs,  the  creatures  belong  to  the  genus 
Belostoma. 

There  is  a  great  clump  of  the  white -veined 
thistle  opposite  the  willows.  There  in  a  thistle- 
leaf  I  once  found  the  caterpillar  of  the  butterfly 
known  as  the  "  Painted  Lady,"  Pyrameis  carduL 
The  Lady  preferred  living  alone,  as  all  her  folks 
do.  In  one  spiny  leaf  she  had  made  a  little  web, 
and  an  intruder  had  to  break  into  her  home  to  ex- 
amine her,  since  she  had  drawn  the  two  sides  of 
the  leaf  partly  together.  I  bore  the  Lady  home, 
and  heroically  pricked  my  fingers  many  a  time 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL   DEER.    193 

in  obtaining  her  food.  She  did  not  seem  very 
friendly.  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  who  fed  on 
such  very  spiny  thistles  could  be. 

But  she  grew  at  a  startling  rate,  and,  one  June 
day,  relieved  me  from  making  any  more  trips  to 
thistle-bushes  by  turning  herself  into  an  angular 
brown  chrysalis,  adorned  with  golden  tubercles. 
She  lived  in  this  style  while  I  packed  her  up  and 
took  her  with  me  on  a  journey  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles.  Then,  one  July  day,  the  joints 
of  my  Lady's  chrysalis  began  to  look  juicy,  and 
great  wriggling  took  place.  My  Painted  Lady 
came  out  of  retirement  gorgeous  in  coloring.  One 
evening,  taking  my  Lady,  I  walked  out  into  the 
forest,  and  having  found  Achilles  in  the  shape  of 
his  namesake  the  white  yarrow,  Achillea^  I  laid 
my  Lady  at  the  feet  of  the  gallant  Grecian  for 
protection.  My  Lady  clung  to  my  finger  as 
though  loath  to  part  from  me,  but  she  was  soon 
made  to  understand  that  separation  was  inevita- 
ble, and  she  subsided  under  the  yarrow  leaves. 
There,  as  she  held  up  her  wings,  all  her  brilliant 
colors  were  hidden,  and  the  gray  tinder-surface 
was  so  much  like  the  general  gray  shade  of  the 
Barrow  leaves  and  the  grasses  that  I  could  but 
just  distinguish  her  as  I  stood  up.  So  she  nes- 
tled down  at  Achilles'  feet  for  the  night,  and  I 
saw  her  no  more.  Perhaps,  in  her  Sittings  through 
the  pine-woods  of  that  hamlet  by  the  sea,  she  lias 
ere  this  found  her  destined  mate,  a  butterfly  that 


194 


UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 


would  never  have  had  a  chance  to  see  my  Lady 
had  I  not  been  the  cause. 

Another  companion  that  I  took  on  my  journey 
was  a  female  "Tussock  Moth,"  Orgyia.  She 
had  no  wings,  as  the  lady-moths  of  her  variety  do 
not  fly.  One  can  find  the  Orgyia  caterpillars  in 
this  district,  though  not  in  great  numbers.  They 
are  pretty  creatures,  small,  with  four  gray  tufts 


Caterpillar  of  Orgyia. 

on  their  backs  like  a  camel's  hump,  and  the  gray 
hair  hangs  over  their  heads  like  bangs.  The 
segments  are  marked  with  red  and  yellow,  but  the 
most  conspicuous  things  about  these  caterpillars 
are  the  long  tufts  of  black  hairs.  One  stands  out 
on  either  side  of  a  caterpillar's  head  like  antennas, 
and  another  such  shoot  adorns  the  end  of  his  body. 
I  fed  mine  on  apple-leaves,  and  it  was  on  such 
a  leaf  that  one  made  a  thin,  fuzzy,  light-grayish 
cocoon.  A  winged  male  with  the  comb-like  an- 


FROGS,   BOYS,   AND   OTHER  SMALL   DEER.     195 

tenme  of  the  Orgyia,  and  grayish  wings,  brown 
underneath,  made  a  hole  in  one  end  of  his  cocoon 


Cocoon  of  Orgyia. 

so  neatly  that  a  person  looking  at  the  cocoon 
would  not  have  known  that  the  moth  had  come 
out. 

It  seems  strange  to  see  a  moth  without  wings. 
These  lady-moths  lead  very  stupid  lives,  hardly 


stirring  from  their  places  during  their  whole  ex- 
istence,  sometimes,    and    consequently    it    was    a 


196 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


very  startling  event  for  Madame  Orgyia  to  be 
transported  to  a  different  section  of  the  country. 
But  she  did  not  object  in  the  least.  She  looked 
somewhat  like  a  beetle  that  had  lost  his  intellect. 
She  gave  but  little  sign  of  intelligence,  but,  while 
away  with  me,  she  laid  six  small  eggs,  that  looked 
like  young  pills. 

One  day  as  I  wandered  beside  this  brook,  bent 
on  ascertaining  what  manner  of  creatures  lived  on 
its  borders,  I  came  to  a  tree,  and,  peering  in  among 
its  leaves,  I  spied  something  that  gave  me  to  un- 


The  leaf  I  found. 
Eggs  of  Chrysopa.     Golden-eyed  Fly. 

derstand  that  some  of  the  Brookside  People  had 
been  there  before  me. 

"  They  look  like  beans,  growing,"  thought  I  to 
myself,  after  I  had  carried  my  prize  home. 

"  They  look  like  mould,"  said  a  girl  friend  to 
me,  when  I  showed  them  to  her.  I  thought  we 
were  both  right. 

On  the  back  of  one  of  the  leaves  were  what 
looked  to  my  friend  like  a  fungous  growth,  but  to 
me  like  twenty  little  beans  not  bigger  than  pins' 
heads.  These  green  "  beans "  were  all  standing 


FROGS,   BOYS,  AND   OTHER  SMALL   DEER.     197 

up  in  the  air  on  five-sixteeiith-of-an-inch  long 
stems,  much  as  real  beans  hoist  themselves  up 
when  they  begin  to  grow.  Unfortunately  I  broke 
the  "  bean  "  off  one  of  the  stems,  so  but  nineteen 
remained.  The  "  beans  "  were  oval,  opaque,  and 
inclined  to  shiver  on  their  slight  stems  like  a 
number  of  reeds. 

I  took  the  leaf  home,  and  looking  at  it,  I  saw 
at  the  bottom  of  one  of  the  bean-stalks  a  little 
green  plant-louse,  or  aphis.  He  was  standing  look- 
ing up  the  stalk  as  if  he  longed  to  climb.  It  was 
quite  a  tree  to  him.  He  did  not  know  what  enemy 
lived  on  it.  If  he  had  climbed,  it  would  have  been 
almost  a  repetition  of  the  story  of  Jack  and  his 
Bean-stalk,  except  that  perhaps  the  giant  might 
not  have  been  awake  by  the  time  Aphis  arrived 
at  the  top. 

For,  although  little  Aphis  did  not  know  it, 
there  really  was  a  giant  at  the  top  of  the  stalk,  as 
there  was  on  Jack's,  a  giant  that  was  coming  down 
by  and  by  to  startle  all  the  Aphides. 

The  "  beans  "  were  really  eggs,  and  one  day, 
after  they  had  turned  to  a  lilac  color,  they  hatched. 
How  those  Giants  of  the  Bean-stalks  ever  got 
down  from  such  heights  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps 
they  tumbled.  If  they  did,  it  must  have  been  like 
falling  over  a  precipice  to  them. 

But  when  I  looked,  there  they  were  on  the  leaf, 
queer  little  mites  of  brown  things,  with  six  legs 
and  a  pair  of  nippers  apiece,  The  eggs  that  the 


198  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Giants  had  left  were  now  white,  and  the  split  open 
iialves  of  one  of  them  made  it  look  like  a  little 
white  flower  about  large  enough  for  a  fairy. 

I  put  one  of  the  Giants  under  a  microscope 
magnifying  eighty  times,  and  what  a 
horrid  monster  appeared !  I  was  afraid 
of  him  myself.  Great,  scissory-look- 
ing  jaws  standing  out  in  front,  black 
legs,  black  eyes,  hairs  reaching  out  from 
the  sides  of  his  body.  I  was  glad  to 
Chrysopa  larva.  take  my  eye  away  and  see  the 
One  of  the  "Giants  monster  dwindle  to  a  dot.  He 

of  the  Bean-stalks"    ^  emphatic    dot,    how- 

(A  little  larger  than  J  r 

mine  when  full-  ever.  A  whole  world  of  deter- 
grown.)  mination  was  in  him. 

Blood-thirsty  Giants  these  creatures  were  for 
one-day-olds.  I  hunted  some  Aphides  for  them, 
and  the  Giants  went  to  work  at  once.  It  is  "  ex- 
cellent to  have  a  giant's  strength,"  but  more  espe- 
cially to  have  his  jaws  in  this  instance.  No  mat- 
ter if  an  aphis  were  almost  twice  as  large  as  a 
Giant,  into  that  aphis'  side  went  those  dreadful 
little  pincers,  and  the  Giant  held  on. 

Wise  men  tell  us  that  the  mandibles  of  these 
larvae  are  hollow  underneath,  and  that  the  little 
maxillae  exactly  fit  into  these  grooves,  and  so 
make  a  pair  of  tubular  forceps  through  which  the 
juice  passes  from  the  aphis  into  its  eater.  Wise 
men  tell  us  another  thing,  too,  and  that  is  that 
the  feet  of  the  Giants  are  particularly  fitted  to  let 


FROGS,  BOYS,  AND   OTHER  SMALL  DEER.     199 

them  run  over  the  twigs  and  leaves  of  plants 
safely  so  as  to  find  the  Aphides.  In  Europe  the 
gardeners  hunt  for  the  Giants,  or,  as  they  are 
more  usually  called  the  "  Aphis-Lions,"  and  put 
them  on  trees  that  are  overrun  with  Aphides. 
No  doubt  the  Giants  are  delighted  with  such  at- 
tention. The  trees  are  soon  cleaned  if  enough  of 
the  Aphis-Lions  are  found. 

It  was  necessary  to  paste  paper  over  the  top  of 
the  jelly -glass  in  which  I  kept  the  Giants,  or  else 
their  lively  food  might  have  run  away.  But  it 
became  quite  a  task  to  hunt  enough  aphides  for 
the  GiantSo  Their  appetites  were  very  good. 
Rose-bush  after  rose-bush  did  I  search,  and  some- 
times I  found  what  I  wanted  on  wild  mallow 
plants.  The  Giants  grew  finely,  and  each  devel- 
oped a  red  line  on  his  back. 

One  day  I  gave  my  Giants  an  extra  good  din- 
ner. I  had  found  a  little  rose-bush  in  one  corner 
of  the  yard  that  I  had  forgotten,  and  it  was  cov- 
ered on  its  fresh  ends  with  hundreds  of  Aphides. 
I  captured  a  great  number  and  put  them  in  with 
the  Giants. 

Next  day  I  looked  to  see  if  more  were  needed, 
but  I  could  see  plenty  through  the  glass.  The 
next  day  things  were  the  same,  and  the  next 
day  after  that  I  began  to  wonder  what  was  the 
matter  with  my  Giants'  appetites.  So  I  poked  a 
hole  in  the  paper  and  opened  the  jelly-glass.  The 
liberated  Aphides  came  out  rejoicing,  but  where 
were  the  Giants  ? 


200  UP   AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

I  began  to  pull  the  dry  rose-leaves  apart,  and 
lo  !  here  and  there  were  little  white  balls  that 
looked  like  pills,  only  they  were  somewhat  cottony 
on  the  outside.  The  Giants,  being  of  the  same 
age,  had  all  become  sleepy  at  the  same  time,  and 
passed  into  the  pupa  stage.  The  cotton  of  their 


Cocoons  of  Chrysopa. 
Mine  were  just  a  little  larger  than  this. 

cocoons  was  beautifully  white,  and  one  could  im- 
agine the  Giants  sleeping  quite  comfortably  inside 
such  sheets.  I  rejoiced  that  the  last  meal  I  had 
given  them  was  so  good  a  one,  for  I  should  have 
felt  guilty  if  I  had  allowed  them  to  go  to  bed  hun- 
gry. If  Aphides  notice  anything  of  the  sort,  how 


FROGS,  BOYS,   AND  OTHER  SMALL  DRER.     201 

they  must  have  rejoiced  when  they  saw  the 
Giants  becoming  too  sleepy  to  eat  them ! 

There  were  only  seven  of  my  cocoons,  for  the 
number  of  the  Giants  had  been  mysteriously  di- 
minishing for  quite  a  while.  I  suspect  that  they 
were  not  always  as  good  to  one  another  as  Giants 
should  be,  and  I  am  afraid  that  they  perhaps  hurt 
one  another  so  much  with  those  scissory  forceps 
that  some  of  the  Giants  died.  I  know  I  found 
two  that  I  thought  were  fighting,  and  one  seemed 
to  be  injured  by  the  contest.  Although  I  did  not 
see  any  cannibalism,  yet  I  know  of  no  reason  why 
the  Giants  might  not  have  tasted  well  to  one  an- 
other, since  they  must  have  been  composed  in- 
wardly of  juice  extracted  from  the  Aphides,  and 
so  perhaps  have  had  a  similar  flavor. 

The  usual  length  of  time  of  the  pupa  state 
with  the  creatures  is,  I  believe,  fifteen  days.  Mine, 
being  the  winter  brood,  slept  longer.  For  five 
months,  commencing  with  about  the  10th  of  Octo- 
ber, the  Giants  slept  in  their  cottony  sheets  in  the 
jelly-glass.  I  put  it  on  a  shelf  in  a  dark  closet, 
and  the  19th  of  March  I  looked  to  see  what  was 
coming  to  pass  there. 

I  found  that  four  Giants  had  awaked.  Their 
cocoons  and  husks  were  lying  on  the  bottom  of 
the  jelly  -  glass.  One  Giant,  alas  !  had  waked 
but  to  die.  I  found,  his  body.  I  suppose  that  he 
died  during  transformation,  as  so  many  creatures 
do..  Several  Giants  that  were  sleepier  than  the. 


202 


UP  AND  DOWN   THE  BROOKS. 


others  afterwards    rubbed  their    eyes    open    and 
arose. 

But  the  Giants  were  not  as  of  old.  They  had 
taken  to  themselves  beautiful  gauzy  wings,  and 
were  pretty  creatures  with  green  bodies  and  bright 

yellow  eyes.  Chrysopa, 
the  Golden-eyed  Fly,  is 
the  rightful  name  of 
these  creatures,  albeit  to 
me  the  eyes  look  very 
much  as  though  made 
of  brass  instead  of  gold.  But  I  would  not  insult 
Chrysopa  with  such  a  suggestion.  Moreover, 
Chrysopa  is  not  a  fly  at  all,  but  belongs  to  the 
Neuroptera,  being  a  distant  relative  of  the  Dragon- 
flies.  Perhaps,  on  some  leaf  that  I  shall  never 
see,  there  have  stood  ere  now  some  more  little 
"  beans  "  set  up  by  one  of  my  Giants,  and  the 
story  of  the  bean-stalks  may  all  have  begun  over 
again. 


Chrysopa. 
The  Golden-eyed  Fly. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

A   LINGERING   GOOD-BY. 

"  And  these  things  finish." 


Shakespeare. 


IT  is  time  to  close.  And  yet  there  are  many 
things  not  set  down  in  black  and  white.  Peo- 
ple might  learn  much  beside  this  brook.  One 
marvels  that  they  do  not  come  here  to  study. 
But  I  reflect  on  Peter  the  Great  and  am  com- 
forted. People  are  not  far  different  from  those 
of  his  times.  Poor  Peter  !  After  establishing  at 
great  expense  that  large  museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory at  St.  Petersburg,  he  was  driven  to  offering 
to  his  beloved  subjects  a  glass  of  brandy  apiece 
as  an  attraction  that  would  draw  them  to  look 
at  the  wonders  of  creation  in  his  museum.  No 
wonder  this  open-air  museum  of  to-day  does  not 
draw  people.  Nature  offers  no  stimulant  here, 
save  the  golden  one  of  sunshine,  tonic  enough  for 
those  who  count  their  descent  from  Father  Adam. 

But  stay.  If  one  is  thirsty,  one  might  take  a 
dock-leaf.  Does  not  the  fine  name  of  the  dock, 
Rumex,  come  from  an  old  Latin  word  meaning 
"  to  suck,"  since  the  Romans  when  thirsty  were 
given  to  sucking  dock-leaves  ?  Can  you  imagine 
great  CaBsar  with  a  dock-leaf  in  his  mouth  ? 


204       UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

Come  here  in  April  when  dock  grows  at  the 
bottom  of  this  bank.  Come  down  and  see  the 
leaves.  No  matter  if  you  do  tumble.  It  is  as 
well  to  tumble  down  for  knowledge  sometimes  as 
to  climb  for  it.  All  knowledge  is  not  on  the 
heights. 

Here  on  the  back  of  a  dock-leaf  are  the  Brook- 
side  Folk  that  I  would  have  you  see.  Little 
black  mites,  but  destined  to  be  beautiful  green- 
winged  small  beetles,  —  representatives  of  the 
Clirysomelidce.  Many  a  time  you  may  notice 
the  marred  dock-leaves  by  the  roads  as  you  pass, 
or  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  small,  yellow  clusters 
of  eggs  of  these  beetles  on  some  stem,  or  turned- 
over  leaf.  The  larvae  have  such  a  habit  of  drop- 
ping from  the  leaves  that  I  wonder  the  mother- 
beetles  place  their  eggs  so  near  this  brook.  I 
should  think  that  the  children  would  fall  in. 
Probably  many  a  miserable  little  black  mite 
meets  this  sad  fate. 

Keep  some  of  these  larva?  in  a  bottle  with 
some  soft,  damp  earth  at  the  bottom,  and  with 
fresh  dock-leaves,  and  you  will  find  that  when 
full  grown  the  larvae  will  descend  and  make  for 
themselves  little  burrows  in  the  soil  where  they 
will  be  transformed  to  light  yellow  pupae.  Put 
one  of  these  pupae  under  a  microscope,  and  you 
will  see  the  short,  tiny,  black  hairs  reaching  out 
from  the  head  and  the  dark  dots  standing  for  eyes. 
Does  he  know,  as  he  lies  motionless  in  yellow 


A  LINGERING    GOOD-BY.  205 

slumber,  that  he  is  being  turned  about  and  looked 
at  ?  He  will  know  what  is  done  to  him  shortly, 
for  you  shall  some  day  go  to  his  bottle  and  find 
him  waiting  for  you  with  life  and  motion  in  him 
and  a  perhaps  dull  green  vesture  on.  If  you  come 
early  enough  you  will  find  him  a  yellow  beetle, 
with  some  iridescent  shades  about  him  perhaps. 
He  is  taking  his  first  feeble  footsteps  and  is  some- 
what inclined  to  tumble  over.  I  left  one  such  per- 
son as  a  yellow  beetle  one  evening,  and  woke  up 
the  next  morning  to  find  him  a  green  one  ;  not  so 
brilliantly  green  as  are  specimens  that  one  often 
meets,  but  a  dull  color,  still  decidedly  green. 

In  that  hole  in  the  root  of  that  live-oak  by  the 
little  bridge  across  the  creek  reside  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Sow-bug  with  their  progeny.  In  that  hole,  alas  ! 
I  once,  digging  with  zeal  and  a  trowel,  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  tail  rapidly  disappearing  in  the  de- 
bris. My  efforts  were  in  vain.  I  could  not  catch 
up.  What  was  he  ?  Salamander  ?  Who  shall 
tell  ?  Such  glimpses  are  reminders  that  there  are 
secret  apartments  in  some  of  these  trees  where 
hermits  may  live,  and  they  no  doubt  are  rightfully 
indignant  when  a  trowel  reaches  in  and  disturbs 
their  meditations. 

Some  of  these  hermits  live  so  far  in  that  they 
cannot  be  reached  till  the  tree  is  down.  Such 
are  some  of  the  fat,  white  larva?  of  beetles  that 
inhabit  live-oak  trees.  An  oak  of  this  kind  was 
chopped  down  about  a  mile  from  here,  and  a 


206 


UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 


friend  of  mine  coming  upon  the  spot  gathered 
some  of  the  numerous  beetle-larvae 
that  sprinkled  the  ground. 

Two  that  were  brought  me  were 
great,  fat  white  creatures.  One 
when  stretched  out  was  about  three 
and  a  quarter  inches  long  and  half 
an  inch  broad ;  the  other  measured 
two  and  a  half  inches  in  length. 

The  trunk  of  the  tree,  according 

HP      to  my  friend's  account,  was  riddled 
^       with  the  holes  of  the  Iarva3,  and 
"       the  report  was  that  when  the  trunk 
first   fell    it    was    swarming   with 
them.     Those  that  I  had  made  no 
more  holes,  however,  seeming  to  be 
content  to  burrow  in  the  earth  at 
Oak-tnee  larva  of  the  bottom  of  their  jar,  and  nibble 
Beetle.  the  live-oak  wood   put  in  for  their 

benefit.  Six  little  prickles  had  each  larva  in  lieu 
of  legs,  and  small  reddish  spiracles  marked  the 
segments  of  the  bodies. 


Larva  of  Cerambyx  heros. 

It  must  be  very   discouraging  to  be  knocked 


A   LINGERING   GOOD-BT.  207 

out  of  a  hole  that  one  has  made  for  one's  self 
with  the  intention  of  abiding  in  it  till  the  larva- 
life  is  done.  Whether  it  was  this  discouragement 
or  not,  from  some  cause  my  larvaB  pined,  grew 
flabby  in  flesh,  and  evidently  gave  up  their  pros- 
pects of  becoming  beetles.  After  living  with  me 
a  few  weeks  a  larva  died.  About  five  months 
after  coming  into  my  possession,  a  second  larva 
departed  from  life.  He  had  shrivelled  till  he  was 
but  a  faint  image  of  his  former  plump  self.  Evi- 
dently it  is  necessary  that  such  creatures  should 
be  allowed  to  be  hermits  and  dwell  in  the  interior 
of  oak-trees  till  perfection  is  reached. 

I  think  if  my  larvae  had  lived  they  would  have 
turned  to  representatives  of  the  Cerambycidce, 
the  Longicornia  of  Latreille,  the  "  Fiddlers  "  of 
the  Germans,  since  my  larvaB  had  the  general 
shape  of  the  children  of  that  family,  being  larger 
in  front  than  behind,  having  six  little  prickles  to 
represent  feet,  and  having  the  rings  of  the  body 
furnished  with  humps.  These  were  probably  use- 
ful in  dragging  the  larvaB  through  their  holes. 
De  Mouffet,  the  ancient  and  credulous,  has  this 
to  say :  "  Terambus,  a  satirist,  did  not  abstain  from 
quipping  of  the  Muses,  whereupon  they  trans- 
formed him  into  a  Beetle  called  Cerambyx,  and 
that  deservedly,  to  endure  a  double  punishment, 
for  he  hath  legs  weak  that  he  goes  lame,  and  like 
a  thief  he  hangs  on  a  tree." 

The  long,  recurved  antennae  of  some  of  these 


208  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

beetles  led  to  a  strange  story  that  De  Mouffet  did 
his  best  to  perpetuate  by  writing  it  down.  In 
speaking  of  one  kind  of  the  family,  the  Prionus, 
and  mentioning  the  antenna  under  the  name  of 
"  two  horns  that  grow  above  their  eyes,"  he  says, 
"  they  are  flexible  with  nine  or  ten  joynts  ;  not 
exactly  round,  but  are  rough  like  goats'  horns, 
which,  although  it  can  move  them  every  way,  yet 
when  it  flies  it  holds  them  only  forth  directly  ;  and 
being  wearied  with  flying,  she  useth  them  for  feet ; 
for  knowing  that  his  legs  are  weak,  he  twists  his 
horns  about  the  branch  of  a  tree,  and  so  he  hangs 
at  ease,  as  our  Bruerus  saw  in  the  country  about 
Heidelberg  ;  in  that  it  resembles  the  Bird  of  Par- 
adise which,  wanting  feet,  clings  about  the  boughs 
with  those  pendulous  nerves,  and  so,  being  tired 
with  labors,  takes  its  ease." 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  old  naturalist  al- 
ways meant  antennae  by  "  horns."  I  think  he 
sometimes  meant  jaws,  for  he  says  of  one  beetle,  it 
"  useth  its  homes  for  that  end  for  which  crabs  and 
lobsters  do  their  clawes."  But  he  says,  "  Beetles 
are  some  greater,  some  less.  The  great  ones,  some 
have  horns,  others  are  without  horns.  Those  that 
have  horns,  some  are  like  Hart's  horns,  others  like 
Goat's  horns,  .  .  .  others  have  rain's  horns  j  some 
have  horns  on  their  nose." 

I  have  read  that  an  English  entomologist  named 
Drury  has  recommended  to  all  those  who  are  ever 
cast  upon  desolate  islands  where  nothing  can  be 


A  LINGERING    GOOD-BY.  209 

found  to  eat,  that  they  should  search  the  tree- 
trunks  for  such  grubs  as  feed  on  wood ;  and  he 
says  that  people  for  a  short  time,  at  least,  can 
comfortably  live  on  such  grubs. 

Certainly  one  would  have  to  be  somewhat  hun- 
gry to  partake  of  such  diet.  I  imagine,  however, 
that  all  the  courage  would  be  needed  for  the  first 
bite.  It  would  almost  be  easier  to  partake  of  the 


Live-oak  Cocoons.     Moths.     Cocoons  about 
life-size. 

painted  paper-snakes  wherewith  Agnolo  della  Per- 
gola fed  his  prisoner,  Zanobi  del  Pino,  telling  him 
that  of  a  Guelph  they  would  make  him  a  Ghibel- 
line. 

Other  things,  found  on  the  live-oak  leaves,  are 
numbers  of  small,  white  cocoons.  I  have  found 
them  with  what  looked  like  small  threads  running 
their  length,  and  in  November  some  have  a  round 
hole  in  one  end.  Gather  some  of  the  cocoon- 


210  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

dotted  oak-leaves  in  the  spring.  They  are  easily 
found,  after  your  eye  is  once  used  to  looking  for 
them,  and  in  May  you  will  find  in  your  paper- 
covered  bottle  small,  light-colored  moths,  looking 
much  like  clothes-moths,  but  smaller  if  anything, 
although  had  I  seen  them  fluttering  in  the  house 
I  should  have  pronounced  them  those  Tineans  of 
which  all  good  women  have  such  a  dread.  But 
look  at  the  oak-moths  closely  and  you  will  see 
that  their  wings  are  marked  with  yellow. 

In  April  on  that  old  willow  by  the  fence  where 
the  path  is  just  wide  enough  for  one  to  walk  with- 
out tumbling  off,  I  found  a  lady-bug.  Not  the 
common  kind,  but  the  smaller  black  variety  with 
a  red  spot  on  either  wing.  Chilocorus  is  my 
lady's  genus,  I  believe.  The  one  I  found  was 
either  of  the  same  variety  as  the  "  twice-stabbed  " 
lady-bug  that  has  rendered  such  service  in  warring 
against  the  scale-insects  in  California  orchards,  or 
was  next  cousin  to  that  useful  beetle.  Who  was 
it  that  first  suggested  that  one  or  two  mashed 
lady-bugs  put  into  the  hollow  of  an  aching  tooth 
would  stop  the  pain  ?  I  read  of  a  naturalist  who 
attempted  curing  his  tooth-ache  with  this  remedy, 
and  he  professed  to  have  been  relieved.  Little  he 
deserved  it,  though,  according  to  my  ideas. 
What !  Shall  a  mortal  take  the  Marien-Kdfer, 
the  "  Lady-beetles  of  the  Virgin,"  the  Vetches  de 
Dieu,  and  smash  them  to  cure  a  vile  tooth-ache ! 
"  To  what  base  uses  we  mav  return,  Horatio !  " 


A  LINGERING   GOOD-BY.  211 

Of  course  where  plant-lice  are,  there  come  the 
larvae  of  the   common  lady-bugs.     Rather  fero- 
cious-looking, but    very  harmless    crea- 
tures they  are.     A   person  will  always 
know  the  eggs  after  once  seeing  them. 
They  are  bright  yellow,  oval,  standing 
perpendicularly  on  one  end  in  a  manner  Larva~  of 
that  Columbus'  egg  might  have  envied.     Lady-bug. 

There  were  seven  eggs  that  I  found  m^Pc°onver- 
once  on  the  back  of  a  red  rose-leaf,  but  gens. 
the  eggs  turned   gray  just  before   hatching,  and 
something  of  the  creatures  within  could  be  seen 
through  the  walls. 

I  saw  several  larvae  just  coming  out  of  those 
eggs.  A  hole  would  appear  in  the  top  of  an  egg 
and  the  larva's  head  would  appear.  Then  the 
creature  would  slowly  come  out,  pulling  first  one 
foot  free  and  then  another,  till  all  six  were  loose 
from  the  egg.  Two  larvae  lay  on  their  backs,  go- 
ing through  this  operation.  I  finally  helped  one 
free  and  put  him  on  a  leaf  where  he  lay  exhausted. 
The  legs  of  these  larvae  look  preposterously  long 
when  they  first  come  from  the  egg  and  have  not 
yet  walked.  After  a  number  of  hours  the  bodies 
of  the  larvae  become  darker,  and  the  looker-on  can 
recognize  the  regular  lady-bug-grub  look.  I  have 
raised  numbers  of  thirteen  -  spot  lady-bugs  from 
such  larvae. 

There  are  a  great  many  Aphides  beside  this 
brook.  One  finds  the  creatures  on  very  vary- 


212  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

ing  kinds  of  plants,  and  has  occasionally  to  brush 
the  crawling  things  from  one's  cape.  But  the 
enemies  of  Aphides  are  abroad,  too.  The  Syrphus 
flies  hover  around  one's  pathway,  looking  like  lit- 
tle wasps.  The  Syrphidce  will  see  to  it  that 
plenty  of  their  larvae  go  forth  to  slay  the  Aphides. 
The  grub  have  a  way  of  holding  to  the  leaves 
with  the  hind  end  of  the  body  and  stretching  out 
the  extensile  forward  portion,  waving  it  about 
after  the  manner  of  a  blind  man  feeling  with  his 
stick.  For  these  Syrphus  grubs  are  blind  and 
footless.  The  wasp  -  like  flies  place  their  eggs 
among  groups  of  Aphides,  usually  not  more  than 
one  or  two  eggs  on  a  leaf.  The  eggs  I  have  found 
have,  been  white,  oval,  and  about  one  thirty-second 
of  an  inch  long.  When  the  grub 
comes  forth  it  has  not  far  to  reach 
to  obtain  its  food,  a  convenient  ar- 

Syrphus  grub  eat-  rangement  for  blind   folk,  although 
ing  Aphis.         j  did   once   fin(j   an   egg   on    a   rose_ 

twig  where  not  a  single  aphis  could  be  seen,  even 
under  the  microscope.  I  suppose  there  are  giddy 
individuals  even  among  Syrphus  flies,  but  that 
mother  certainly  deserved  a  reprimand  for  plac- 
ing her  poor  blind  infant  in  such  a  situation  that 
it  would  have  to  travel  all  over  the  branch,  hunt- 
ing for  its  first  meal.  On  inspection,  however,  I 
found  something  on  the  shoot  that  may  have  been 
the  white  skeleton  of  a  dead  aphis.  Perhaps  that 
aphis  was  there  alive  and  well  when  mother  Syr- 


A   LINGERING   GOOD-BY.  213 

phus  deposited  that  egg.  Perhaps  she  thought 
that  one  aphis  was  enough  for  her  infant's  first 
meal.  She  did  not  want  him  to  injure  himself  by 
over-eating.  Let  us  be  charitable. 

You  can  see  such  grubs  pick  up  the  Aphides 
one  by  one.  How  must  it  seem  to  reach  out, 
catch  one's  breakfast,  hold  it  up  in  the  air,  even 
if  it  is  as  big  as  one's  self,  and  devour  it  alive  ? 

I  have  had  Syrphus  larvas  that  had  a  tinge  of 
red  in  their  complexions.  When  a  grub  has 
eaten  enough,  it  sticks  itself  to  a  leaf,  its  body 
draws  up  and  becomes  somewhat  hard.  After  a 
time  this  puparium  opens  and  the  fly  appears. 
One  that  I  raised  had  a  golden  thorax  and  a  gold- 
and-black  abdomen,  the  legs  being  yellowish,  and 
the  eyes  reddish  and  big.  The  body  was  slightly 
tinged  with  green  underneath. 

Great  numbers  of  these  flies  must  appear  in 
the  course  of  a  year.  I  have  found  grubs  at  work 
in  April,  and  I  know  not  how  long  before  such 
creatures  may  have  begun  to  stir.  I  have  found 
other  grubs  that  came  out  as  flies  as  late  as  Octo- 
ber. We  owe  much  to  these  diligent  blind  grubs. 
If  a  person  can  put  enough  larvaB  of  the  Golden- 
eyed  Fly,  Syrphus,  and  the  Lady-bug  on  trees 
infested  with  plant-lice,  there  need  be  little  fear 
that  the  enemy  will  not  be  conquered.  There  are 
many  little  servants  ready  to  aid  man  if  he  will 
but  become  acquainted  with  them  and  show  them 
the  work  he  wants  them  to  do.  "  All  flies  shall 


214  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

perish  except  one,  and  that  is  the  bee-fly,"  says  the 
Koran.  I  know  not  whether  the  writer  of  that 
sentence  meant  Syrphus.  I  doubt  it,  but  surely 
that  useful  insect  deserves  to  live  longer  than 
many  others.  Not  for  such  as  it  should  be  such  a 
"  Papal  Cursing  Bell  "  as  that  which  Horace  Wai- 
pole  on  Strawberry  Hill  kept  for  a  curiosity,  the 
bell  being  that  made  by  Benvenuto  Cellini  for 
Pope  Clement  VII.,  and  being  formed  of  silver, 
carved  outside  to  represent  serpents,  flies,  grass- 
hoppers, and  other  baleful  creatures  that  were  to 
be  warded  from  the  lands  of  the  faithful.  I  trust 
that  the  old  Popes  were  versed  in  entomology,  and 
never  banned  the  Syrphidce  or  like  useful  crea- 
tures. 

If  the  ecclesiastics  trusted  entirely  to  the  ob- 
servations of  country  folk,  however,  in  discrim- 
inating between  insect  foes  and  friends,  I  much 
fear  that  mistakes  were  sometimes  made,  or  else 
the  people  of  those  days  were  brighter  than  per- 
sons now.  For  it  sometimes  takes  a  deal  of  look- 
ing to  know  friends  from  foes,  especially  if  the 
looker  has  no  books  to  help  him  in  the  search. 
And  yet  a  friend  of  mine  once  told  me  that  she 
had  been  in  farm-houses  in  the  country  where  she 
saw  Reports  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture, 
containing  information  about  insects  that  farmers 
ought  to  be  acquainted  with,  sold  for  old  paper ! 
Surely  such  people  deserve  all  the  insect  enemies 
that  come  to  see  them. 


A  LINGERING    GOOD-BY.  215 

"  We  that  have  good  wits  have  much  to  answer 
for,"  says  Touchstone,  but,  if  that  plain-spoken 
clown  would  ever  come  out  of  that  forest  of  Arden 
in  which  he  perpetually  lingers,  perhaps  he  might 
acknowledge  that  those  who  have  not  good  wits  in 
this  day  have  much  to  answer  for,  and  are  obliged 
to  make  answer,  too,  when  they  see  their  crops 
devoured  by  creatures  that  they  might  have  known 
how  to  fight,  if  they  had  read  the  information 
freely  placed  in  their  hands.  And  perhaps  Touch- 
stone, beholding  the  multitude  of  the  insect  crea- 
tion, might  again  have  occasion  to  remark,  "  The 
fool  doth  think  that  he  is  wise,  but  the  wise  man 
knows  himself  to  be  a  fool,"  —  a  saying  that  quite 
expresses  the  ideas  of  people  in  regard  to  "  bugs  ; " 
those  who  know  but  little  about  them  being  much 
more  elated  with  self-wisdom  than  those  who  know 
more. 

I  once  had  the  privilege  of  giving  a  scarcely 
one-day-old,  perhaps  not  more  than  half-a-day-old, 
Syrphus  larva  his  first  meal.  He  was  a  brave 
youth  and  had  started  out  independently  enough 
to  seek  his  own  fortune,  when  I,  like  a  fairy  god- 
mother gave  him  my  gift.  It  was  an  aphis  about 
his  size.  He  stuck  his  head  into  the  aphis,  back 
of  the  victim's  head  and  went  to  work. 

For  forty-five  long  minutes  I  watched  him. 
He  sucked  the  aphis  as  a  baby  would  a  bottle. 
Tiring  of  his  devotion  to  that  aphis,  I  took  it 
from  him.  Poor  fellow  !  It  was  his  first  disap- 


216  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS, 

pointment  in  life.  He  fell  prone  under  it  at  first, 
and  then  began  to  wildly  stretch  around  demand- 
ing his  prize  again.  I  put  him  on  a  leaf  and  al- 
lowed him  to  search  for  an  aphis  to  his  liking. 
But  he  was  hard  to  suit.  I  think  he  had  eaten 
enough,  for  he  walked  among  the  Aphides  awhile, 
an  uneasy  speck,  threatening  them  with  destruc- 
tion, yet  harming  none  of  them.  So  I  thrust  him 
out  into  the  world  and  let  him  go  on  his  blind 
way  to  shift  for  himself  in  the  branches  of  a  pink 
moss-rose.  Probably  before  now  he  has  brought 
ruin  and  devastation  to  many  a  happy  aphis.  It 
is  wonderful  how  independent  insects  are,  even 
from  the  first  moment  they  gain  strength  after 
coming  out  from  the  egg.  Without  a  mother  to 
care  for  them  or  a  home  to  shelter  them,  out  they 
go.  The  whole  world  is  their  home  and  they  are 
happy  in  it.  Let  enemies  come  and  they  are 
ready  for  them,  sometimes  more  than  ready,  eager 
for  the  conflict,  having  the  spirit  of  the  Templars, 
of  whom  it  is  said  that  none  ever  asked  the  num- 
ber of  the  enemy,  but  only  demanded,  "  Where 
are  they  ?  " 

But  how  hard-hearted  are  the  insects  toward 
one  another !  In  all  the  time  that  I  have  watched 
them  I  do  not  recollect  ever  having  seen  an  act 
of  compassion  performed  by  any  kind  of  insect 
for  another.  The  brown  plant-lice  arid  the  ants 
that  I  have  found  together  on  the  backs  of  willow- 
leaves  seem  to  be  perhaps  as,  friendly  as  any  in-. 


A  LINGERING   GOOD-BY.  217 

sects  that  I  remember  at  present,  and  yet  I  doubt 
if  their  relations  are  prompted  by  kindness. 

Do  not  think  that  all  is  joy  beside  this  brook. 
To  those  who  have  eyes  to  read,  there  are  records 
here  of  many  blighted  hopes.  A  fence  runs  be- 
side this  brook,  and  on  it,  as  on  others  around 
here,  you  may  find  cocoons  in  their  season.  But 
poke  your  stick  into  one,  and  you  will  find,  not  a 
healthy-looking  pupa  of  a  caterpillar  that  shall 
come  out  as  a  moth,  but  a  number  of  little  brown 
pupae-cases,  much  smaller  than  the  caterpillar. 
The  cocoon  may  also  contain  a  remnant  of  the 
caterpillar's  dried  up  body. 

Many  a  caterpillar  has  crawled  up  these  boards 
and  formed  for  himself  a  cocoon  in  some  sheltered 
nook,  andj  even  while  forming  it,  he  must  have 
been  aware  of  certain  very  queer  and  painful  feel- 
ings inside  of  himself.  Awful  things  went  on  in- 
side that  cocoon,  things  never  revealed  save  to 
those  persons  who  go  out  some  day  to  gather  co- 
coons. 

If  you  wish  to  have  a  crop  of  flies  in  the  spring, 
shake  the  October  pupae-cases  from  the  cocoons 
into  your  bottle,  put  it  away  covered  with  mos- 
quito-bar. Some  March  day  you  will  look  into 
the  bottle  and  will  see  four  or  five  flies  longing 
for  freedom.  They  are  about  as  large  as  house- 
flies,  and  these  villainous  beings  have  lived  as 
maggots  inside  of  the  caterpillars  and  have  pre- 
vented some  moths  from  ever  appearing  in  the 


218  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

world.  I  have  found  several  such  maggots  in  a 
single  cocoon.  In  raising  caterpillars,  one  is  al- 
most sure  to  have  some  from  whose  bodies  will 
come  maggots.  Give  such  fly-worms  a  bit  of  earth, 
and  in  an  incredibly  short  time  they  will  trans- 
form to  brown  pupse. 

Other  inhabitants  of  the  cocoons  are  f  the  Der- 
mestidce,  or  Skin-beetles,  and  their  children.  Go- 
ing up  that  hill  one  day  early  in  September,  when 
all  the  world  was  in  dust,  and  when  the  evil-smell- 
ing daisies  were  almost  the  only  flowers  in  bloom, 
I  saw  a  cocoon  on  the  fence.  Poking  into  the 
cocoon  I  found  a  perfect  beetle  and  five  brown 
and  white  larva  of  the  Dermestidce.  The  larvae 
wore  trailing  hairs,  like  a  lady's  train, 
behind  them,  and  had  a  bunch  of  hair  on 
each  side  of  each  segment. 

As  for  their  mother    (for   I  have  no 
doubt  she  stood  in  that  relation  to  them), 
her  brown  back  was  marked  with  white, 
and  she  was  a  deceitful  person  to  have 
the  training  of  any  children  ;  for  if  she 
was  disturbed,  down  she  tumbled  on  her 
estidce,  —  back  and  pretended  to  be  dead.     The 
enlarged.       infants  did  not  seem  to  care  how  many 
times  she  died.     Probably  they  were  used  to  her 
deaths. 

After  keeping  them  a  time  I  thought  that  the 
infants  were  also  dead.  They  lay  motionless  in 
the  bottom  of  the  bottle,  and  bitterly  did  I  accuse 


A  LINGERING    GOOD-BY.  219 

myself  of  having  been  their  murderer,  by  not 
having  given  them  caterpillar  or  cocoon  remnants 
enough  for  their  sustenance.  But  hypocrisy  ran 
in  the  family.  In  October  I  tipped  out  the  con- 
tents of  the  bottle.  There  was  the  remnant  of  a 
chrysalis,  some  skins  of  larvae,  and  some  cater- 
pillar hair.  There  were  also  two  or  three  beetles. 
The  larvae  had  not  been  dead  at  all. 

The  new  beetles  were  like  their  parent  in  body 
and  mind,  for  one  immediately  fell  on  his  back, 
his  feet  folded,  and  every  feature  exactly  like 
death.  I  helped  one  of  the  beetles  out  of  the 
remnant  of  a  pupa  case  that  still  stuck  to  his  back. 
But  he  was  very  dead  during  the  operation. 

I  remember  sitting  mourning  over  a  beetle  of 
this  kind  once.  I  held  him  in  my  hand,  and  as 
I  wondered  why  he  died,  he  moved  a  leg !  I  have 
never  become  accustomed  to  the  perfection  to 
which  the  skin-beetles  carry  their  mimicry,  and 
if  I  have  to  decide  a  case  of  death  I  usually  gaze 
at  the  beetle  as  long  as  my  patience  holds  out, 
and  if  he  has  not  moved  then,  I  leave  him,  know- 
ing no  more  than  I  did  before  inspection.  Un- 
less such  a  beetle  is  positively  shrivelled,  no  one 
can  tell  whether  he  is  dead  or  not. 

And  so  the  traveller  beside  this  brook  and  over 
these  hills  may  learn,  if  he  looks,  that  man  is  not 
the  only  creature  who  builds  houses  and  is  dis- 
appointed about  living  in  them.  There  is  mate- 
rial here  for  a  fine  sermon,  after  all,  take  the 


220  UP  AND  DOWN  THE  BROOKS. 

brook  through  and  through.  Here  are  fightings 
and  murders  and  thefts  and  trickeries,  the  sem- 
blance of  death,  the  awakening  from  slumber,  the 
rising  to  new  life,  the  change  from  the  grovelling 
on  the  earth  to  the  soaring  of  wings  in  the  sun- 
shine. 

Indeed,  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  corner  of  the 
world  where  one  may  not  find  one's  text  and 
preach  a  sermon  to  one's  self,  if  in  a  sermonizing 
mood.  For  myself,  there  is  in  these  brooks  some- 
thing as  eloquent  of  Him  whom  they  of  old  called 
the  "All-Father,"  as  there  might  be  for  me  in 
any  other  nook  of  the  universe.  His  hand  has 
been  here  also.  Let  us  conclude  with  the  words 
that  old  De  Mouffet  wrote  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  for  they  are  as  true  now  as  then,  "  All 
things  are  full  of  God's  wonderfulnesse." 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Aphis,    Syrphus    grub    eating, 

212. 
Architecture,    A    triumph    of, 

142. 

Beetle,  Oak-tree  larva  of,  206. 
Belostoma  grandis,  22. 
Blackberry  leaf,  Eggs  on  back 

of,  133. 

Blue-bells,  80. 
Brodiaea    terrestris,    Bud    and 

flower  of,  80. 

Bug,  Little,  a  day  old,  133. 
Butterfly  Lily,  82. 

Caddis-worm's      House      with 

"logs,"  The  bigger,  140. 
California  Hydrophilidae,  30. 
Calochortus  Weedii,  82. 
Case  with  Caddis-fly  larva,  135. 
Catch-poll,  9. 
Caterpillar  of  Orgyia,  194. 
Cerambyx  heros,  Larva  of,  206. 
"  Chore,"   Sandy's   unfinished, 

138. 

Chrysopa,  202. 
Chrysopa,  Cocoons  of,  200. 
Chrysopa,  Eggs  of,  196. 
Chrysopa  larva,  198. 
Cocoon  of  Orgyia,  195. 
Cocoons  of  Chrysopa,  200. 
Communis,  Cyclops,  122. 
Corydalus   cornutus,   Pupa  of, 

153. 

Corydalus,  Horned,  151. 
Corydalus,   Larva   of   Horned, 

147. 

Cyclops  communis,  122. 
Cypris  unifasciata.  122. 

Dermestidae,  Larva  of,  218. 
Dodecatheoii  Meadia,  81. 


Dragon-fly  larva,  Large,  6. 
Dredger,  Home-made,  75. 
Dytiscus,  3. 
Dytiscus  marginalis,  Larva  of, 

59. 
Dytiscus  pupae,  73. 

Eggs  of  Chrysopa,  196. 

Eggs  of  Hydrophilidae,  35. 

Eggs  of  Water-boatman,  55. 
I  Eggs    on    back  of   blackberry 
leaf,  133. 

Epaulette,    Scorpion-bug  bear- 
ing, 18. 

I  Fly,  Golden-eyed,  202. 
'  Fly,  Tipulid,  88. 
Frog-hopper,  Larvae  of,  105. 

Golden-eyed  Fly,  The,  202. 
Gordius  aquaticus,  118. 

Hippodamia  convergens,  211. 
Home-made  Dredger,  75. 
Horned  Corydalus,  151. 
Hydrachna  geographica,  124. 
Hydrophilidae,  California,  30. 
Hydrophilidae,  Eggs  of,  35. 
Hydrophilidae,  Larvae  of,  36. 
Hydrotrechus  remigis,  2. 

Lady-bug,  Larva  of,  211. 
Larvae  of  Hydrophilidae,  36. 
Larvae,  Red  Dragon-fly,  48. 
Larva,   Case    with    Caddis-fly, 

135. 

Larva,  Chrysopa,  198. 
Larva,  Large  Dragon-fly,  6. 
Larva,     Mask      of      Libellula 

Dragon-fly,  9. 
Larva,  Water-mite,  124. 
Larva  of  Cerambyx  heros,  20(3. 


222 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Larva  of  Dermestidae,  218. 
Larva  of  Dytiscus  marginalia, 


. 
Larva  of  Frog-hopper,  105. 


59. 

of  Frog-hopper, 
Larva   of    Horned    Corydalus, 


147. 

Larva  of  Lady-bug,  211. 
Leaf  I  found,  The,  196. 
Libellula     Dragon-fly      larva. 

Mask  of,  9. 
Lily,  Butterfly,  82. 
Lily,  Mariposa,  82. 
Live-oak  cocoons,  209. 

Mariposa  Lily,  82. 

Mask  of  Libellula  Dragon-fly 

larva,  9. 

Mimulus  glutinosus,  81. 
Monarch  at  rest,  The,  73. 
Moths,  209. 

Moth,  Winged  male,  195. 
Moth,  Wingless  female,  195. 
Mourning  Cloak,  181. 
My  Ranatra,  23. 

Notonecta  glauca,  52. 
Notonectidae,  4. 

Oak-tree     larva     of     Beetle, 

206. 

Orgyia,  Caterpillar  of,  194. 
Orgyia,  Cocoon  of,  195. 
Orgyia  Leucostigma,  195. 


Papilio  Turnus,  140. 
Pup«3  of  Tipulidse,  87. 
Pupa  of    Corydalus    cornutus, 
153. 

Ranatra,  My,  23. 

Red  Dragon-fly  larvae,  48. 

Sandy's    unfinished     "chore," 

138. 
Scorpion-bug  bearing  epaulette, 

18. 

Shooting-star,  81. 
Syrphus    grub    eating    Aphis. 

212. 

Thysanura,  One  of  the,  173. 
Tipulidae,  Pupae  of,  87. 
Tipulid  Fly,  88. 
Triton,  104. 

Triumph  of   Architecture,   A, 
142. 

Vanessa  Antiopa,  180. 

Water-boatman,  Eggs  of,  55. 
Water-boatmen,  4. 
Water-mite  Adult,  124. 
Water-mite  Larva,  120. 
Water-scorpion,  17. 
Water-skater,  2. 
Winged  male  Moth,  195. 
Wingless  female  Moth,  195. 


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